PRIVATE  LIBRARY 


CAPL  J.  J.  BRICE 


U.    S.   NAVY 


1898 


0/1 


DllDlC 


PRIVATE  LIBRARY 


CAPL  J.  J.  BRICE 

U.    S.   NAVY 

1898 


SIR    WALTER    RALEIGH 


AND    HIS   TIME, 


WITH    OTHER    PAPERS. 


BY   CHAKLES   KINGSLEY. 


AUTHOR  OF  "HYPATIA,"  "TWO  TEAKS  AGO,"  ETC. 


BOSTON: 
TICKNOR   AND    FIELDS. 

M  DCCC  MX. 


AUTHOR'S  EDITION. 


RIVERSIDE,  CAMBRIDGE: 
PRINTED  BY  H.  O.  HOUGHTON  AND  COMPANY. 


CONTENTS. 


SIR   WALTER   RALEIGH   AND   HIS   TIME 1 

PLAYS   AND   PURITANS f  .  .  .  74 

BURNS   AND   HIS   SCHOOL 119 

HOURS   WITH   THE   MYSTICS 155 

TENNYSON 177 

THE  POETRY   OF   SACRED   AND   LEGENDARY  ART  .  .  .196 

NORTH  DEVON 221 

PHAETHON r   .  .         276 

ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS 317 

MY  WINTER-GARDEN 398 

ENGLAND  FROM   WOLSEY  TO  ELIZABETH  .          .  .          .426 


KINGSLEY'S    MISCELLANIES. 


SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH   AND   HIS   TIME. 

[North  British  Review.} 

"  TRUTH  is  stranger  than  fiction."  A  trite  remark.  We  all 
say  it,  again  and  again:  but  how  few  of  us  believe  it!  How 
few  of  us,  when  we  read  the  history  of  heroical  times  and  heroical 
men,  take  the  story  simply  as  it  stands.  On  the  contrary,  we  try 
to  explain  it  away  ;  to  prove  it  all  not  to  have  been  so  very  won 
derful  ;  to  impute  accident,  circumstance,  mean  and  commonplace 
motives ;  to  lower  every  story  down  to  the  level  of  our  own  lit 
tleness,  or  what  we  (unjustly  to  ourselves,  and  to  the  God  who 
is  near  us  all)  choose  to  consider  our  level ;  to  rationalize  away 
all  the  wonders,  till  we  make  them  at  last  impossible,  and  give 
up  caring  to  believe  them  ;  and  prove  to  our  own  melancholy  sat 
isfaction  that  Alexander  conquered  the  world  with  a  pin,  in  his 
sleep,  by  accident. 

And  yet  in  this  mood,  as  in  most,  there  is  a  sort  of  left-handed 
truth  involved.  These  heroes  are  not  so  far  removed  from  us, 
after  all.  They  were  men  of  like  passions  with  ourselves,  with 
the  same  flesh  about  them,  the  same  spirit  within  them,  the  same 
world  outside,  the  same  devil  beneath,  the  same  God  above. 
They  and  their  deeds  were  not  so  very  wonderful.  Every  child 
who  is  born  into  the  world  is  just  as  wonderful ;  and,  for  aught 
we  know,  might,  mutatis  mutandis,  do  just  as  wonderful  deeds. 
If  accident  and  circumstance  helped  them,  the  same  may  help 

1.  Life  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh.  By  PATRICK  FRASER  TYTLER,  Esq.  F.R.S., 
F.S.A.  2.  Raleigh's  Discovery  of  Guiana.  Edited  by  Sir  ROBERT  SCHOM- 
BURGK.  3.  Lord  Bacon  and  Sir  Walter  Raleigh.  By  MACVEY  NAPIER,  Esq. 
4.  Raleigh's  Works,  with  Lives  by  OLDYS  and  BIRCH.  5.  Bishop  Goodman's  His 
tory  of  his  own  Times. 


2  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

us  :    have   helped  us,  if  we  will  look  back  down  our  years,  far 
more  than  we  have  made  use  of. 

They  were  men,  certainly,  very  much  of  our  own  level :  but 
may  we  not  put  that  level  somewhat  too  low  ?  They  were  cer 
tainly  not  what  we  are  ;  for  if  they  had  been,  they  would  have 
done  no  more  than  we  :  but  is  not  a  man's  real  level  not  what 
he  is,  but  what  he  can  be,  and  therefore  ought  to  be  ?  No  doubt 
they  were  compact  of  good  and  evil,  just  as  we  :  but  so  was 
David,  no  man  more ;  though  a  more  heroical  personage  (save 
One)  appears  not  in  all  human  records  ;  but  may  not  the  secret 
of  their  success  have  been,  that,  on  the  whole,  (though  they  found 
it  a  sore  battle,)  they  refused  the  evil  and  chose  the  good  ?  It 
is  true,  again,  that  their  great  deeds  may  be  more  or  less  ex 
plained,  attributed  to  laws,  rationalized  :  but  is  explaining  always 
explaining  away  ?  Is  it  to  degrade  a  thing  to  attribute  it  to  a 
law  ?  And  do  you  do  anything  more  by  "  rationalizing  "  men's 
deeds  than  prove  that  they  were  rational  men  ;  men  who  saw 
certain  fixed  laws,  and  obeyed  them,  and  succeeded  thereby,  ac 
cording  to  the  Baconian  apophthegm,  that  nature  is  conquered 
by  obeying  her  ? 

But  what  laws? 

To  that  question,  perhaps,  the  eleventh  chapter  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews  will  give  the  best  answer,  where  it  says,  that  by 
faith  were  done  all  the  truly  great  deeds,  and  by  faith  lived  all 
the  truly  great  men,  who  have  ever  appeared  on  earth. 

There  are,  of  course,  higher  and  lower  degrees  of  this  faith  ; 
its  object  is  one  more  or  less  worthy  :  but  it  is  in  all  cases  the 
belief  in  certain  unseen  eternal  facts,  by  keeping  true  to  which 
a  man  must  in  the  long  run  succeed.  Must ;  because  he  is  more 
or  less  in  harmony  with  heaven,  and  earth,  and  the  Maker 
thereof,  and  has  therefore  fighting  on  his  side  a  great  portion  of 
the  universe  ;  perhaps  the  whole ;  for  as  he  who  breaks  one 
commandment  of  the  law  is  guilty  of  the  whole,  because  he 
denies  the  fount  of  all  law,  so  he  who  with  his  whole  soul  keeps 
one  commandment  of  it  is  likely  to  be  in  harmony  with  the 
whole,  because  he  testifies  of  the  fount  of  all  law. 

We  will  devote  a  few  pages  to  the  story  of  an  old  hero,  of  a 
man  of  like  passions  with  ourselves  ;  of  one  who  had  the  most 
intense  and  awful  sense  of  the  unseen  laws,  and  succeeded 
mightily  thereby  ;  of  one  who  had  hard  struggles  with  a  flesh 
and  blood  which  made  him  at  times  forget  those  laws,  and  failed 
mightily  thereby  :  of  one  whom  God  so  loved  that  He  caused 
each  slightest  sin,  as  with  David,  to  bring  its  own  punishment 
with  it,  that  while  the  flesh  was  delivered  over  to  Satan,  the 
man  himself  might  be  saved  in  the  Day  of  the  Lord  ;  of  one, 


SIR   WALTER  RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  3 

finally,  of  whom  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  men  out  of  a 
thousand  may  say,  "  I  have  done  worse  deeds  than  he  :  but  I 
have  never  done  as  good  ones." 

In  a  poor  farm-house  among  the  pleasant  valleys  of  South 
Devon,  among  the  white  apple-orchards  and  the  rich  water- 
meadows,  and  the  red  fallows  and  red  kine,  in  the  year  of  grace 
1552,  a  boy  was  born,  as  beautiful  as  day,  and  christened  Walter 
Kaleigh.  His  father  was  a  gentleman  of  ancient  blood  :  none 
older  in  the  land  :  but,  impoverished,  he  had  settled  down  upon 
the  wreck  of  his  estate,  in  that  poor  farm-house.  No  record  of 
him  now  remains ;  but  he  must  have  been  a  man  worth  knowing 
and  worth  loving,  or  he  would  not  have  won  the  wife  he  did. 
She  was  a  Champernoun,  proudest  of  Norman  squires,  and  could 
probably  boast  of  having  in  her  veins  the  blood  of  Courtneys, 
Emperors  of  Byzant.  She  had  been  the  wife  of  the  famous 
knight  Sir  Otho  Gilbert,  and  lady  of  Compton  Castle,  and  had 
borne  him  three  brave  sons,  John,  Humphrey,  and  Adrian  ;  all 
three  destined  to  win  knighthood  also  in  due  time,  and  the  two 
latter  already  giving  promises,  which  they  well  fulfilled,  of  be 
coming  most  remarkable  men  of  their  time.  And  yet  the  fair 
Champernoun,  at  her  husband's  death,  had  chosen  to  wed  Mr. 
Raleigh,  and  share  life  with  him  in  the  little  farm-house  at  Hayes. 
She  must  have  been  a  grand  woman,  if  the  law  holds  true  that 
great  men  always  have  great  mothers ;  an  especially  grand 
woman,  indeed  ;  for  few  can  boast  of  having  borne  to  two  differ 
ent  husbands  such  sons  as  she  bore.  No  record,  as  far  as  we 
know,  remains  of  her ;  nor  of  her  boy's  early  years.  One  can 
imagine  them,  nevertheless. 

Just  as  he  awakes  to  consciousness,  the  Smithfield  fires  are 
extinguished.  He  can  recollect,  perhaps,  hearing  of  the  burn 
ing  of  the  Exeter  martyrs  ;  and  he  does  not  forget  it ;  no  one 
forgot  or  dared  forget  it  in  those  days.  He  is  brought  up  in 
the  simple  and  manly,  yet  high-bred  ways  of  English  gentlemen 
in  the  times  of  u  an  old  courtier  of  the  Queen's."  His  two 
elder  half-brothers  also,  living  some  thirty  miles  away,  in  the 
quaint  and  gloomy  towers  of  Compton  Castle,  amid  the  apple- 
orchards  of  Torbay,  are  men  as  noble  as  ever  formed  a  young 
lad's  taste.  Humphrey  and  Adrian  Gilbert,  who  afterwards, 
both  of  them,  rise  to  knighthood,  are — what  are  they  not  ? 
soldiers,  scholars,  Christians,  discoverers,  and  "  planters"  of  for 
eign  lands,  geographers,  alchemists,  miners,  Flatonical  philoso 
phers  ;  many-sided,  high-minded  men,  not  without  fantastic 
enthusiasm  ;  living  heroic  lives,  and  destined,  one  of  them,  to 
die  a  heroic  death.  From  them  Raleigh's  fancy  has  been  fired, 
and  his  appetite  for  learning  quickened,  while  he  is  yet  a  daring 


4  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

boy,  fishing  in  the  gray  trout-brooks,  or  going  up  with  his  father 
to  the  Dartmoor  hills,  to  hunt  the  deer  with  hound  and  horn, 
amid  the  wooded  gorges  of  Holne,  or  over  the  dreary  downs  of 
Hartland  Warren,  and  the  cloud-capt  thickets  of  Gator's  Beam, 
and  looking  down  from  thence  upon  the  far  blue  southern  sea, 
wondering  when  he  shall  sail  thereon,  to  fight  the  Spaniard,  and 
discover,  like  Columbus,  some  fairy-land  of  gold  and  gems. 

For  before  this  boy's  mind,  as  before  all  intense  English  minds 
of  that  day,  rise,  from  the  first,  three  fixed  ideas,  which  yet  are 
but  one — the  Pope,  the  Spaniard,  and  America. 

The  first  two  are  the  sworn  and  internecine  enemies  (whether 
they  pretend  a  formal  peace  or  not)  of  Law  and  Freedom,  Bible 
and  Queen,  and  all  that  makes  a'n  Englishman's  life  dear  to  him. 
Are  they  not  the  incarnations  of  Antichrist  ?  Their  Moloch 
sacrifices  flame  through  all  lands.  The  earth  groans  because  of 
them,  and  refuses  to  cover  the  blood  of  her  slain.  And  America 
is  the  new  world  of  boundless  wonder  and  beauty,  wealth  and 
fertility,  to  which  these  two  evil  powers  arrogate  an  exclusive 
and  divine  right ;  and  God  has  delivered  it  into  their  hands  ;  and 
they  have  done  evil  therein  with  all  their  might,  till  the  story  of 
their  greed  and  cruelty  rings  through  all  earth  and  heaven.  Is 
this  the  will  of  God  ?  Will  he  not  avenge  for  these  things,  as 
surely  as  he  is  the  Lord  who  executeth  justice  and  judgment  in 
the  earth? 

These  are  the  young  boy's  thoughts.  These  were  his  thoughts 
for  sixty-six  eventful  years.  In  whatsoever  else  he  wavered,  he 
never  wavered  in  that  creed.  He  learnt  it  in  his  boyhood, 
while  he  read  Fox's  Martyrs  beside  his  mother's  knee.  He 
learnt  it  as  a  lad,  when  he  saw  Hawkins  and  Drake  changed 
by  Spanish  tyranny  and  treachery  from  peaceful  merchantmen 
into  fierce  scourges  of  God.  He  learnt  it  scholastically,  from 
fathers  and  divines,  as  an  Oxford  scholar:,  in  days  when  Oxford 
was  a  Protestant  indeed,  in  whom  there  was  no  guile.  He 
learnt  it  when  he  went  over,  at  seventeen  years  old,  with  his  gal 
lant  kinsman  Henry  Champernoun,  and  his  band  of  one  hun 
dred  gentlemen  volunteers,  to  flesh  his  maiden  sword  in  behalf  of 
the  persecuted  French  Protestants.  He  learnt  it  as  he  listened 
to  the  shrieks  of  the  San  Bartholomew  ;  he  learnt  it  as  he 
watched  the  dragonnades,  the  tortures,  the  massacres  of  the 
Netherlands,  and  fought  manfully  under  Norris  -in  behalf  of 
those  victims  of  "  the  Pope  and  Spain."  He  preached  it  in  far 
stronger  and  wiser  words  than  we  can  express  it  for  him,  in  that 
noble  tract  of  1591,  on  Sir  Richard  Grenville's  death  at  the 
Azores — a  Tyrtsean  trumpet-blast  such  as  has  seldom  rung  in 
human  ears ;  he  discussed  it  like  a  cool  statesman  in  his  pam- 


SIR   WALTER  RALEIGH   AND   HIS   TIME.  5 

phlet  of  1596,  on  A  War  with  Spain.  He  sacrificed  for  it 
the  last  hopes  of  his  old  age,  the  wreck  of  his  fortunes,  his  just 
recovered  liberty  ;  and  he  died  with  the  old  God's  battle-cry 
upon  his  lips,  when  it  awoke  no  response  from  the  hearts  of  a 
coward,  profligate,  and  unbelieving  generation.  This  is  the  back 
ground,  the  key-note  of  the  man's  whole  life,  of  which,  if  we  lose 
the  recollection,  and  content  ourselves  by  slurring  it  over  in  the 
last  pages  of  his  biography  with  some  half-sneer  about  his  put 
ting,  like  the  rest  of  Elizabeth's  old  admirals,  "  the  Spaniard,  the 
Pope,  and  the  Devil "  in  the  same  category,  we  shall  understand 
very  little  about  Raleigh ;  though,  of  course,  we  shall  save  our 
selves  the  trouble  of  pronouncing  as  to  whether  the  Spaniard 
and  the  Pope  were  really  in  the  same  category  as  the  devil ;  or, 
indeed,  which  might  be  equally  puzzling  to  a  good  many  histo 
rians  of  the  last  century  and  a  half,  whether  there  be  any  devil 
at  all. 

The  books  which  we  have  chosen  to  head  this  review,  are  all 
of  them  more  or  less  good,  with  one  exception,  and  that  is  Bishop 
Goodman's  Memoirs,  on  which  much  stress  has  been  lately  laid, 
as  throwing  light  on  various  passages  of  Raleigh,  Essex,  Cecil, 
and  James's  lives.  Having  read  it  carefully,  we  must  say  plainly, 
that  we  think  the  book  an  altogether  foolish,  pedantic,  and  un 
trustworthy  book,  without  any  power  of  insight  or  gleam  of  rea 
son,  without  even  the  care  to  be  self-consistent ;  having  but  one 
object,  the  whitewashing  James,  and  every  noble  lord  whom  the 
bishop  has  ever  known  ;  but  in  whitewashing  each,  the  poor  old 
flunkey  so  bespatters  all  the  rest  of  his  pets,  that  when  the  work 
is  done,  the  whole  party  look,  if  possible,  rather  dirtier  than  before. 
And  so  we  leave  Bishop  Goodman. 

Mr.  Eraser  Tytler's  book  is  well  known  ;  and  it  is  on  the 
whole  a  good  one  ;  because  he  really  loves  and  admires  the  man 
of  whom  he  writes :  but  he  is  wonderfully  careless  as  to  author 
ities,  and  too  often  makes  the  wish  father  to  the  thought — indeed 
to  the  fact.  ^Moreover,  he  has  all  the  usual  sentimental  cant 
about  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  and  all  the  usual  petty  and  prurient 
scandal  about  Elizabeth,  which  is  to  us  anathema,  which  prevents 
his  really  seeing  the  time  in  which  Raleigh  lived,  and  the  ele 
ment  in  which  he  moved.  This  sort  of  talk  is  happily  dying 
out  just  now  ;  but  no  one  can  approach  the  history  of  the  Eliza 
bethan  age  (perhaps  of  any  age)  without  finding  that  truth  is  all 
but  buried  under  mountains  of  dirt  and  chaff — an  Augagan  stable 
which,  perhaps,  will  never  be  swept  clean.  Yet  we  have  seen, 
with  great  delight,  several  attempts  toward  removal  of  the  said 
superstratum  of  dirt  and  chaff  from  the  Elizabethan  histories,  in 
several  articles,  all  evidently  from  the  same  pen,  (and  that  one, 


6  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

more  perfectly  master  of  English  prose  to  our  mind  than  any 
man  living,)  in  the  Westminster  Review  and  Fraser's  Maga 
zine* 

Sir  Robert  Schomburgk's  edition  of  the  Guiana  Voyage  con 
tains  an  excellent  Life  of  Raleigh,  perhaps  the  best  yet  written  ; 
of  which  we  only  complain,  when  it  gives  in  to  the  stock-charges 
against  Raleigh,  as  it  were  at  second  hand,  and  just  because  they 
are  stock -charges,  and  because,  too,  the  illustrious  editor  (unable 
to  conceal  his  admiration  of  a  discoverer  in  many  points  so  like 
himself) 'takes  all  through  an  apologetic  tone  of  "  Please  don't 
laugh  at  me.  I  daresay  it  is  very  foolish  ;  but  I  can't  help  lov 
ing  the  man." 

Mr.  Napier's  little  book  is  a  reprint  of  two  Edinburgh  Review 
articles  on  Bacon  and  Raleigh.  The  first,  a  learned  statement 
of  facts  in  answer  to  some  unwisdom  of  a  Quarterly  reviewer, 
(as  we  suspect  an  Oxford  Aristotelian ;  for  "  we  think  we  do 
know  that  sweet  Roman  hand.")  It  is  clear,  accurate,  convinc 
ing,  complete.  There  is  no  more  to  be  said  about  the  matter, 
save  that  facts  are  stubborn  things,  and 

"  Victrix  causa  diis  placuit,  sed  victa  Suello!  " 

The  article  on  Raleigh  is  very  valuable ;  first,  because  Mr. 
Napier  has  had  access  to  many  documents  unknown  to  former 
biographers;  and  next,  because  he  clears  Raleigh  completely 
from  the  old  imputation  of  deceit  about  the  Guiana  mine,  as  well 
as  of  other  minor  charges.  With  his  general  opinion  of  Raleigh's 
last  and  fatal  Guiana  voyage,  we  have  the  misfortune  to  differ 
from  him  toto  ccelo,  on  the  strength  of  the  very  documents  which 
he  quotes.  But  Mr.  Napier  is  always  careful,  always  temperate, 
and  always  just,  except  where  he,  as  we  think,  does  not  enter 
into  the  feelings  of  the  man  whom  he  is  analyzing.  Let  readers 
buy  the  book  (it  will  tell  them  a  hundred  things  they  do  not 
know)  and  be  judge  between  Mr.  Napier  and  us. 

In  the  meanwhile,  one  cannot  help  watching  with  a  smile  how 
good  old  Time's  scrubbing  brush,  which  clears  away  paint  and 
whitewash  from  church  pillars,  does  the  same  by  such  characters 
as  Raleigh's.  After  each  fresh  examination,  some  fresh  count 
in  the  hundred-headed  indictment  breaks  down.  The  truth  is, 
that  as  people  begin  to  believe  more  in  nobleness,  and  to  gird  up 
their  loins  to  the  doing  of  noble  deeds,  they  discover  more  noble 
ness  in  others.  Raleigh's  character  was  in  its  lowest  Nadir  in 

*  We  especially  entreat  readers'  attention  to  two  articles  in  vindication  of 
the  morals  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  in  Fraser's  Magazine  of  1854;  to  one  in  the 
Westminster  of  1854,  on  Mary  Stuart;  and  one  in  the  same  of  1852,  on  England's 
Forgotten  Worthies. 


SIE   WALTER   RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  7 

the  days  of  Voltaire  and  Hume.  What  shame  to  him  ?  For 
so  were  more  sacred  characters  than  his.  Shall  the  disciple  be 
above  his  master  ?  Especially  when  that  disciple  was  but  too 
inconsistent,  and  gave  occasion  to  the  uncircumcised  to  blas 
pheme  ?  But  Cayley,  after  a  few  years,  refutes  triumphantly 
Hume's  silly  slanders.  He  is  a  stupid  writer  :  but  he  has  sense 
enough,  being  patient,  honest,  and  loving,  to  do  that. 

Mr.  Fraser  Tytler  shovels  away  a  little  more  of  the  dirt-heap ; 
Mr.  Napier  clears  him,  (for  which  we  owe  him  many  thanks,) 
by  simple  statement  of  facts,  from  the  charge  of  having  deserted 
and  neglected  his  Virginia  colonists  ;  Humboldt  and  Schomburgk 
from  the  charge  of  having  lied  about  Guiana  ;  and  so  on  ;  each 
successive  writer  giving  in  generally  on  merest  hearsay  to  the 
general  complaint  against  him,  either  from  fear  of  running  coun 
ter  to  big  names,  or  from  mere  laziness,  and  yet  absolving  him 
from  that  particular  charge  of  which  their  own  knowledge  ena 
bles  them  to  judge.  In  the  trust  that  we  may  be  able  to  clear 
him  from  a  few  more  charges,  we  write  these  pages,  premising 
that  we  do  not  profess  to  have  access  to  any  new  and  recondite 
documents.  We  merely  take  the  broad  facts  of  the  story  from 
documents  open  to  all,  and  comment  on  them  as  we  should  wish 
our  own  life  to  be  commented  on. 

But  we  do  so  on  a  method  which  we  cannot  give  up  ;  and 
that  is  the  Bible  method.  We  say  boldly,  that  historians  have 
hitherto  failed  in  understanding  not  only  Raleigh,  Elizabeth,  but 
nine  tenths  of  the  persons  and  facts  in  his  day,  because  they  will 
not  judge  them  by  the  canons  which  the  Bible  lays  down — (by 
which  we  mean  not  only  the  New  Testament,  but  the  Old,  which, 
as  English  Churchmen  say,  and  Scotch  Presbyterians  have  ere 
now  testified  with  sacred  blood,  is  "  not  contrary  to  the  New.") 

Mr.  Napier  has  a  passage  about  Raleigh  for  which  we  are 
sorry,  coming  as  it  does  from  a  countryman  of  John  Knox. 
"  Society,  it  would  seem,  was  yet  in  a  state  in  which  such  a  man 
could  seriously  plead,  that  the  madness  he  feigned  was  justified" 
(his  last  word  is  unfair,  for  Raleigh  only  hopes  that  it  is  no  sin) 
"  by  the  example  of  David,  King  of  Israel !  "  What  a  shocking 
state  of  society  when  men  actually  believed  their  Bibles,  not  too 
little,  but  too  much !  For  our  parts,  we  think  that  if  poor  dear 
Raleigh  had  considered  the  example  of  David  a  little  more  closely, 
he  need  never  have  feigned  madness  at  all ;  and  that  his  error 
lay  quite  in  an  opposite  direction  from  looking  on  the  Bible 
heroes,  David  especially,  as  too  sure  models.  At  all  events,  we 
are  willing  to  try  Raleigh  by  the  very  scriptural  standard  which 
he  himself  lays  down,  not  merely  in  this  case  unwisely,  but 
in  his  History  of  the  World  more  wisely  than  any  historian 


8  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

whom  we  have  ever  read ;  and  to  say,  "  Judged  as  the  Bible 
taught  our  Puritan  forefathers  to  judge  every  man,  the  character 
is  intelligible  enough  ;  tragic,  but  noble  and  triumphant :  judged 
as  men  have  been  judged  in  history  for  the  last  hundred  years, 
by  hardly  any  canon  save  those  of  the  private  judgment,  which 
philosophic  cant,  maudlin  sentimentality,  or  fear  of  public  opin 
ion,  may  happen  to  have  begotten,  the  man  is  a  phenomenon, 
only  less  confused,  abnormal,  suspicious  than  his  biographers' 
notions  about  him."  Again  we  say,  we  have  not  solved  the 
problem ;  but  it  will  be  enough  if  we  make  some  think  it  both 
soluble,  and  worth  solving. 

Let  us  look  round,  then,  and  see  into  what  sort  of  a  country, 
into  what  sort  of  a  world,  the  young  adventurer  is  going  forth, 
at  seventeen  years  of  age,  to  seek  his  fortune. 

Born  in  1552,  his  young  life  has  sprung  up  and  grown  with 
the  young  life  of  England.  The  earliest  fact,  perhaps,  which  he 
can  recollect,  is  the  flash  of  joy  on  every  face  which  proclaims 
that  Mary  Tudor  is  dead,  arid  Elizabeth  reigns  at  last.  As  he 
grows,  the  young  man  sees  all  the  hope  and  adoration  of  the 
English  people  centre  in  that  wondrous  maid,  and  his  own  centre 
in  her  likewise.  He  had  been  base  had  he  been  otherwise.  She 
comes  to  the  throne  with  such  a  prestige  as  never  sovereign 
came,  since  the  days  when  Isaiah  sang  his  paean  over  young 
Hezekiah's  accession.  Young,  learned,  witty,  beautiful,  (as  with 
such  a  father  and  mother  she  could  riot  help  being,)  with  an  ex 
pression  of  countenance  remarkable  (we  speak  of  those  early 
days)  rather  tor  its  tenderness  and  intellectual  depth  than  its 
strength,  she  comes  forward  as  the  Champion  of  the  Reformed 
Faith,  the  interpretess  of  the  will  and  conscience  of  the  people 
of  England — herself  persecuted  all  but  to  the  death,  and  puritied 
by  affliction,  like  gold  tried  in  the  lire.  She  gathers  round  her, 
one  by  one,  young  men  of  promise,  and  trains  them  herself  to 
their  work.  And  they  fulfil  it,  and  serve  her,  and  grow  gray- 
headed  in  her  service,  working  as  faithfully,  as  righteously,  as 
patriotically,  as  men  ever  worked  on  earth.  They  are  her  "  fa 
vourites  ;  "  because  they  are  men  who  deserve  favour  ;  men  who 
count  not  their  own  lives  dear  to  themselves  for  the  sake  of  the 
queen  and  of  that  commonweal  which  their  hearts  and  reasons 
tell  them  is  one  with  her.  They  are  still  men,  though  ;  and 
some  of  them  have  their  grudgings  and  envyings  against  each 
other :  she  keeps  the  balance  even  between  them  as  skilfully, 
gently,  justly,  as  woman  ever  did,  or  mortal  man  either.  Some 
have  their  conceited  hopes  of  marrying  her,  becoming  her  mas 
ters.  She  rebukes  and  pardons.  "  Out  of  the  dust  I  took  you, 
sir  !  go  and  do  your  duty,  humbly  and  rationally,  henceforth,  or 


SIR   WALTER   RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  9 

into  the  dust  I  trample  you  again  !  "  And  they  reconsider  them 
selves,  and  obey.  But  many,  or  most  of  them,  are  new  men, 
country  gentlemen,  and  younger  sons.  She  will  follow  her 
father's  plan,  of  keeping  down  the  overgrown  feudal  princes,  who, 
though  brought  low  by  the  wars  of  the  Roses,  are  still  strong 
enough  to  throw  every  thing  into  confusion  by  resisting  at  once 
Crown  and  Commons.  Proud  nobles  reply  by  rebellion,  come 
down  southwards  with  ignorant  Popish  henchmen  at  their  backs ; 
will  restore  Popery,  marry  the  Queen  of  Scots,  make  the  middle 
class  and  the  majority  submit  to  the  feudal  lords  and  the  minor 
ity.  The  Alruna-maiden,  with  her  "aristocracy  of  genius,"  is 
too  strong  for  them  ;  the  people's  heart  is  with  her,  and  not  with 
dukes.  Each  mine  only  blows  up  its  diggers,  and  there  are 
many  dry  eyes  at  their  ruin.  Her  people  ask  her  to  marry. 
She  answers  gently,  proudly,  eloquently :  "  She  is  married — the 
people  of  England  is  her  husband.  She  has  vowed  it."  And 
well  she  keeps  her  vow.  And  yet  there  is  a  tone  of  sadness  in 
that  great  speech.  Her  woman's  heart  yearns  after  love,  after 
children  ;  after  a  strong  bosom  on  which  to  repose  that  weary 
head.  But  she  knows  that  it  must  not  be.  She  has  her  reward. 
"  Whosoever  gives  up  husband  or  child  for  my  sake  and  the  gos 
pel's,  shall  receive  them  back  a  hundredfold  in  this  present  life," 
as  Elizabeth  does.  Her  reward  is  an  adoration  from  high  and 
low,  which  is  to  us  now  inexplicable,  impossible,  overstrained, 
which  was  not  so  then.  For  the  whole  nation  is  in  a  mood  of 
exaltation  ;  England  is  fairyland ;  the  times  are  the  last  days — 
strange,  terrible,  and  glorious. 

At  home  are  Jesuits  plotting ;  dark,  crooked-pathed,  going  up 
and  down  in  all  manner  of  disguises,  doing  the  devil's  work  if 
men  ever  did  it ;  trying  to  sow  discord  between  man  and  man, 
class  and  class  ;  putting  out  books  full  of  filthy  calumnies,  de 
claring  the  queen  illegitimate,  excommunicate,  a  usurper.  Eng 
lish  law  null,  and  all  state  appointments  void,  by  virtue  of  a 
certain  "bull,"  and  calling  on  the  subjects  to  rebellion  and 
assassination,  even  on  the  bed-chamber  women  to  do  to  her  "  as 
Judith  did  to  Holofernes."  She  answers  by  calm  contempt. 
Now  and  then  Burleigh  and  Walsingham  catch  some  of  the 
rogues,  and  they  meet  their  deserts  ;  but  she  for  the  most  part 
lets  them  have  their  way.  God  is  on  her  side,  and  she  will  not 
fear  what  man  can  do  to  her. 

Abroad,  the  sky  is  dark  and  wild,  and  yet  full  of  fantastic 
splendour.  Spain  stands  strong  and  awful,  a  rising  world — 
tyranny,  with  its  dark-souled  Cortezes  and  Pizarros,  Alvas,  Don 
Johns,  and  Parmas,  men  whose  path  is  like  the  lava  stream, 
who  go  forth  slaying  and  to  slay,  in  the  name  of  their  gods,  like 


IQ  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

those  old  Assyrian  conquerors  on  the  walls  of  Nineveh,  with 
tutelary  genii  flying  above  their  heads,  mingled  with  the  eagles 
who  trail  the  entrails  of  the  slain.  By  conquest,  intermarriage, 
or  intrigue,  she  has  made  all  the  southern  nations  her  vassals  or 
her  toofs  ;  close  to  our  own  shores,  the  Netherlands  are  struggling 
vainly  for  their  liberties ;  abroad,  the  Western  Islands,  and  the 
whole  trade  of  Africa  and  India,  will  in  a  few  years  be  hers. 
And  already  the  Pope,  whose  "  most  Catholic  "  and  faithful  ser 
vant  she  is,  has  repaid  her  services  in  the  cause  of  darkness  by 
the  gift  of  the  whole  new  world— a  gift  which  she  has  claimed 
by  cruelties  and  massacres  unexampled  since  the  days  of  Timour 
and  Zinghis  Khan.  There  she  spreads  and  spreads,  as  Drake 
found  her  picture  in  the  Government  House  at  St.  Domingo, 
the  horse  leaping  through  the  globe,  and  underneath,  "  Non 
sufficit  orbis."  Who  shall  withstand  her,  armed  as  she  is  with 
the  three-edged  sword  of  Antichrist — superstition,  strength,  and 
gold? 

English  merchantmen,  longing  for  some  share  in  the  riches  of 
the  New  World,  go  out  to  trade  in  Guinea,  in  the  Azores,  in  New 
Spain  ;  and  are  answered  by  shot  and  steel.  "  Both  policy  and 
religion,"  as  Fray  Simon  says,  fifty  years  afterwards,  "  forbid 
Christians  to  trade  with  heretics  !  "  "  Lutheran  devils,  and  ene 
mies  of  God,"  are  the  answer  they  get  in  words  ;  in  deeds,  when 
ever  they  have  a  superior  force  they  may  be  allowed  to  land, 
and  to  water  their  ships,  even  to  trade,  under  exorbitant  restric 
tions  ;  but  generally  this  is  merely  a  trap  for  them.  Forces  are 
hurried  up ;  and  the  English  are  attacked  treacherously,  in  spite 
of  solemn  compacts ;  for  "  No  faith  need  be  kept  with  heretics." 
And  wo  to  them  if  any  be  taken  prisoners,  even  wrecked.  The 
galleys,  and  the  rack,  and  the  stake,  are  their  certain  doom ;  for 
the  Inquisition  claims  the  bodies  and  souls  of  heretics  all  over 
the  world,  and  thinks  it  sin  to  lose  its  own.  A  few  years  of  such 
wrong  raise  questions  in  the  sturdy  English  heart.  What  right 
have  these  Spaniards  to  the  New  World  ?  The  Pope's  gift  ? 
Why,  he  gave  it  by  the  same  authority  by  which  he  claims  the 
whole  world.  The  formula  used  when  an  Indian  village  is 
sacked  is,  that  God  gave  the  whole  world  to  St.  Peter,  and  that 
he  has  given  it  to  his  successors,  and  they  the  Indies  to  the  King 
of  Spain.  To  acknowledge  that  lie  would  be  to  acknowledge 
the  very  power  by  which  the  Pope  claims  a  right  to  depose 
Queen  Elizabeth,  and  give  her  dominions  to  whomsoever  he  will. 
A  fico  for  Bulls  ! 

By  possession,  then  ?  That  may  hold  for  Mexico,  Pern,  New 
Grenada,  Paraguay,  which  have  been  colonized  ;  though  they 
were  gained  by  means  which  make  every  one  concerned  in  con- 


SIR   WALTER  RALEIGH  AND   HIS  TIME.  n 

quering  them  worthy  of  the  gallows  ;  and  the  right  is  only  that 
of  the  thief  to  the  purse  whose  owner  he  has  murdered.  But  as 
for  the  rest — Why  the  Spaniard  has  not  colonized,  even  explored, 
one  twentieth  of  the  New  World,  not  even  one  fourth  of  the 
coast.  Is  the  existence  of  a  few  petty  factories,  often  hundreds 
of  miles  apart,  at  a  few  river  mouths,  to  give  them  a  claim  to 
the  whole  intermediate  coast,  much  less  to  the  vast  unknown 
tracts  inside  ?  We  will  try  that.  If  they  appeal  to  the  sword, 
so  be  it.  The  men  are  treacherous  robbers  ;  we  will  indemnify 
ourselves  for  our  losses,  and  God  defend  the  right. 

So  argued  the  English  ;  and  so  sprung  up  that  strange  war  of 
reprisals,  in  which,  for  eighteen  years,  it  was  held  that  there  was 
no  peace  between  England  and  Spain  beyond  the  line,  i.  e.  be 
yond  the  parallel  of  longitude  where  the  Pope's  gift  of  the  wes 
tern  world  was  said  to  begin  ;  and,  as  the  quarrel  thickened  and 
neared,  extended  to  the  Azores,  Canaries,  and  coasts  of  Africa, 
where  English  and  Spaniards  flew  at  each  other  as  soon  as  seen, 
mutually  and  by  common  consent,  as  natural  enemies,  each  in 
voking  God  in  the  battle  with  Antichrist. 

Into  such  a  world  as  this  goes  forth  young  Raleigh,  his  heart 
full  of  chivalrous  worship  for  England's  tutelary  genius,  his 
brain  aflame  with  the  true  miracles  of  the  new-found  Hesperides, 
full  of  vague  hopes,  vast  imaginations,  and  consciousness  of  enor 
mous  power.  And  yet  he  is  no  wayward  dreamer,  unfit  for  this 
workday  world.  With  a  vein  of  song  "  most  lofty,  insolent,  and 
passionate,"  indeed  unable  to  see  aught  without  a  poetic  glow 
over  the  whole,  he  is  eminently  practical,  contented  to  begin  at 
the  beginning,  that  he  may  end  at  the  end ;  one  who  could  work 
terribly,  "  who  always  laboured  at  the  matter  in  hand  as  if  he 
were  born  only  for  that."  Accordingly,  he  sets  to  work  faith 
fully  and  stoutly,  to  learn  his  trade  of  soldiering  ;  and  learns  it 
in  silence  and  obscurity.  He  shares  (it  seems)  in  the  retreat  at 
Moncontour,  and  is  by  at  the  death  of  Conde,  and  toils  on  for 
five  years,  marching  and  skirmishing,  smoking  the  enemy  out  of 
mountain-caves  in  Languedoc,  and  all  the  wild  work  of  war. 
During  the  San  Bartholomew  massacre  we  hear  nothing  of  him  ; 
perhaps  he  took  refuge  with  Sidney  and  others  in  Walsingham's 
house.  No  records  of  these  years  remain,  save  a  few  scattered 
reminiscences  in  his  works,  which  mark  the  shrewd,  observant 
eye  of  the  future  statesman. 

When  he  returned  we  know  not.  We  trace  him,  in  1576.  by 
some  verses  prefixed  to  Gascoigne's  satire,  The  Steele  Glass, 
solid,  stately,  epigrammatic,  by  Walter  Rawely  of  the  Middle 
Temple.  The  style  is  his  ;  spelling  of  names  matters  nought  in 
days  in  which  a  man  would  spell  his  own  name  three  different 


!2  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

ways  in  one  document.  Gascoigne,  like  Raleigh,  knew  Lord 
Grey  of  Wilton,  and  most  men  about  town,  too,  and  bad  been  a 
soldier  abroad,  like  Raleigh,  probably  with  him.  It  seems  to 
have  been  the  fashion  for  young  idlers  to  lodge  among  the  Tem 
plars  ;  indeed,  toward  the  end  of  the  century,  they  had  to  be 
cleared  out,  as  crowding  the  wigs  and  gowns  too  much,  and  per 
haps  proving  noisy  neighbours,  as  Raleigh  may  have  done.  To 
this  period  may  be  referred,  probably,  his  justice  done  on  Mr. 
Charles  Chester,  (Ben  Jonson's  Carlo  Buffone^)  "a  perpetual 
talker,  and  made  a  noise  like  a  drum  in  a  room  ;  so  one  time,  at 
a  tavern,  Raleigh  beats  him  and  seals  up  his  mouth,  his  upper 
and  nether  beard,  with  hard  wax."  For  there  is  a  great  laugh 
in  Raleigh's  heart,  a  genial  contempt  of  asses  ;  and  one  that  will 
make  him  enemies  hereafter ;  perhaps  shorten  his  days. 

One  hears  of  him  next,  (but  only  by  report,)  in  the  Nether 
lands,  under  Norris,  where  the  nucleus  of  the  English  army 
(especially  of  its  musquetry)  was  training.  For  Don  John  of 
Austria  intends  not  only  to  crush  the  liberties  and  creed  of  the 
Flemings,  but  afterwards  to  marry  the  Queen  of  Scots,  and  con 
quer  England  ;  and  Elizabeth,  unwillingly  and  slowly,  for  she 
cannot  stomach  rebels,  has  sent  men  and  money  to  The  States, 
to  stop  Don  John  in  time  ;  which  the  valiant  English  and  Scotch 
do  on  Lammas-day  1578,  and  that  in  a  fashion  till  then  unseen 
in  war.  For  coming  up  late  and  panting,  and  "  being  more  sen 
sible  of  a  little  heat  of  the  sun,  than  of  any  cold  fear  of  death," 
they  throw  off  their  armour  and  clothes,  and,  in  their  shirts,  (not 
over-clean,  one  fears,)  give  Don  John's  rashness  such  a  rebuff, 
that  two  months*  more  see  that  wild  meteor,  with  lost  hopes  and 
tarnished  fame,  die  down  and  vanish  below  the  stormy  horizon. 
In  these  days,  probably,  it  is  that  he  knew  Colonel  Bingham,  a 
soldier  of  fortune,  of  a  "  fancy  high  and  wild,  too  desultory  and 
over-voluble,"  who  had,  among  his  hundred-and-one  schemes, 
one  for  the  plantation  of  America ;  as  poor  Sir  Thomas  Stukely 
(whom  Raleigh  must  have  known  well,)  uncle  of  the  traitor 
Lewis,  had  for  the  peopling  of  Florida. 

Raleigh  returns  :  Ten  years  has  he  been  learning  his  soldier's 
trade  in  silence.  He  will  take  a  lesson  in  seamanship  next. 
The  Court  may  come  in  time ;  for,  by  now,  the  poor  squire's 
younger  son  must  have  discovered — perhaps  even  too  fully — 
that  he  is  not  as  other  men  are  ;  that  he  can  speak,  and  watch, 
and  dare,  and  endure,  as  none  around  him  can  do.  However, 
here  are  "  good  adventures  toward,"  as  the  Morte  d'Arthur  would 
say  ;  and  he  will  off  with  his  half-brother  Humphrey  Gilbert,  to 
carry  out  his  patent  for  planting  Meta  Incognita, — "  The  Un 
known  Goal,"  as  Queen  Elizabeth  has  named  it, — which  will 


SIR   WALTER   RALEIGH   AND   HIS   TIME.  13 

prove  to  be  too  truly  and  fatally  unknown.  In  a  latitude  south 
of  England,  and  with  an  Italian  summer,  who  can  guess  that  the 
winter  will  out-freeze  Russia  itself?  The  merchant-seaman, 
like  the  statesman,  had  yet  many  a  thing  to  learn.  Instead  of 
smiling  at  our  forefathers'  ignorance,  let  us  honour  the  men  who 
bought  knowledge  for  us  their  children  at  the  price  of  lives 
nobler  than  our  own. 

So  Raleigh  goes  on  his  voyage  with  Humphrey  Gilbert,  to 
carry  out  the  patent  for  discovering  and  planting  in  "  Meta  In 
cognita  ;  "  but  the  voyage  prospers  not.  A  "  smart  brush  with 
the  Spaniards  "  sends  them  home  again,  with  the  loss  of  Morgan, 
their  best  captain,  and  "  a  tall  ship,"  and  Meta  Incognita  is  for 
gotten  for  a  while  :  but  not  the  Spaniards.  Who  are  these  who 
forbid  all  English,  by  virtue  of  the  Pope's  bull,  to  cross  the  At 
lantic?  That  must  be  settled  hereafter;  and  Raleigh,  ever  busy, 
is  off  to  Ireland,  to  command  a  company  in  that  "  common-weal, 
or  rather  common-woe,"  as  he  calls  it  in  a  letter  to  Leicester. 
Two  years  and  more  pass  here  ;  and  all  the  records  of  him  which 
remain  are  of  a  man,  valiant,  daring,  and  yet  prudent  beyond  his 
fellows.  He  hates  his  work  ;  and  is  not  on  too  good  terms  with 
stern  and  sour,  but  brave  and  faithful  Lord  Grey:  but  Lord 
Grey  is  Leicester's  friend,  and  Raleigh  works  patiently  under 
him,  like  a  sensible  man,  because  he  is  Leicester's  friend.  Some 
modern  gentleman  of  note  (we  forget  who,  and  do  not  care  to 
recollect)  says,  that  Raleigh's  "  prudence  never  bore  any  pro 
portion  to  his  genius."  The  next  biographer  we  open  accuses 
him  of  being  too  calculating,  cunning,  time-serving ;  and  so  forth. 
Perhaps  both  are  true.  The  man's  was  a  character  very  likely 
to  fall  alternately  into  either  sin, — doubtless,  did  so  a  hundred 
times.  Perhaps  both  are  false.  The  man's  character  was,  on 
occasion,  certain  to  rise  above  both  faults.  We  have  evidence 
that  he  did  so  his  whole  life  long. 

He  is  bored  with  Ireland  at  last :  nothing  goes  right  there, 
(when  has  it  ?)  nothing  is  to  be  done  there.  That  which  is 
crooked  cannot  be  made  straight,  and  that  which  is  wanting  can 
not  be  numbered.  He  comes  to  London,  and  to  Court.  But 
how  ?  By  spreading  his  cloak  over  a  muddy  place  for  Queen 
Elizabeth  to  step  on  ?  It  is  a  pretty  story  ;  very  likely  to  be  a 
true  one  :  but  biographers  have  slurred  a  few  facts  in  their  hurry 
to  carry  out  their  theory  of  "  favourites,"  and  to  prove  that  Eliz 
abeth  took  up  Raleigh  on  the  same  grounds  that  the  silliest 
boarding-school  miss  might  have  done.  .Not  that  we  deny  the 
cloak  story,  if  true,  to  be  a  very  pretty  story ;  perhaps  it  justi 
fies,  taken  alone,  Elizabeth's  fondness  for  him.  There  may  have 
been  self-interest  in  it ;  we  are  bound,  as  "  men  of  the  world," 


14  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

to  impute  the  dirtiest  motive  that  we  can  find :  but  how  many 
self-interested  men  do  we  know,  who  would  have  had  quickness 
and  daring  to  do  such  a  thing  ?  Men  who  are  thinking  about 
themselves  are  not  generally  either  so  quick-witted,  or  so  inclined 
to  throw  away  a  good  cloak,  when  by  much  scraping  and  saving 
they  have  got  one.  We  never  met  a  cunning,  selfish,  ambitious 
man  who  would  have  done  such  a  thing.  The  reader  may  :  but 
even  if  he  has,  we  must  ask  him,  for  Queen  Elizabeth's  sake,  to 
consider  that  this  young  Quixote  is  the  close  relation  of  two  of 
the  finest  public  men  then  living,  Champernoun  and  Carew. 
That  he  is  a  friend  of  Sidney  ;  a  pet  of  Leicester ;  that  he  has 
left  behind  him  at  Oxford,  and  brought  with  him  from  Ireland, 
the  reputation  of  being  a  rara  avis,  a  new  star  in  the  firmament ; 
that  he  has  been  a  soldier  in  her  Majesty's  service  (and  in  one 
in  which  she  has  a  peculiar  private  interest)  for  twelve  years  ; 
that  he  has  held  her  commission  as  one  of  the  triumvirate  for 
governing  Minister,  and  been  the  commander  of  the  garrison  at 
Cork ;  and  that  it  is  possible  that  she  may  have  heard  something 
of  him  before  he  threw  his  cluak  under  her  feet,  especially  as 
there  has  been  some  controversy  (which  we  have  in  vain  tried 
to  fathom)  between  him  and  Lord  Grey  about  that  terrible  Smer- 
wick  slaughter ;  of  the  result  of  which  we  know  little,  but  that 
Raleigh,  being  called  in  question  about  it  in  London,  made  such 
good  play  with  his  tongue,  that  his  reputation  as  an  orator  and 
a  man  of  talent  was  fixed  once  and  for  ever. 

Within  the  twelve  months  he  is  sent  on  some  secret  diplomatic 
mission  about  the  Anjou  marriage  ;  he  is  in  fact  now  installed 
in  his  place  as  "  a  favourite."  And  why  not?  If  a  man  is  found 
to  be  wise  and  witty,  ready  and  useful,  able  to  do  whatsoever  he 
is  put  to,  why  is  a  sovereign,  who  has  eyes  to  see  the  man's 
worth,  and  courage  to  use  it,  to  be  accused  of  I  know  not  what, 
because  the  said  man  happens  to  be  good-looking  ?  Of  all  gen 
erations,  this,  one  would  think,  ought  to  be  the  last  to  cry  out 
against  "  favouritism "  in  government :  but  we  will  draw  no 
odious  comparisons,  because  readers  can  draw  them  but  too  easily 
for  themselves. 

Now  comes  the  turning-point  of  Raleigh's  life.  What  does 
he  intend  to  be  ?  Soldier,  statesman,  scholar,  or  sea-adventurer  ? 
He  takes  the  most  natural,  yet  not  the  wisest  course.  He  will 
try  and  be  all  four  at  once.  He  has  intellect  for  it ;  by  worldly 
wisdom  he  may  have  money  for  it  also.  Even  now  he  has  con 
trived  (no  one  can  tell  whence)  to  build  a  good  bark  of  two 
hundred  tons,  and  send  her  out  with  Humphrey  Gilbert  on  his 
second  and  fatal  voyage.  Luckily  for  Raleigh  she  deserts  and 
comes  home,  while  not  yet  out  of  the  Channel,  or  she  had  surely 


SIR   WALTER  RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  15 

gone  the  way  of  the  rest  of  Gilbert's  squadron.  Raleigh,  of 
course,  loses  money  by  the  failure,  as  well  as  the  hopes  which 
he  -had  grounded  on  his  brother's  Transatlantic  viceroyalty. 
And  a  bitter  pang  it  must  have  been  to  him,  to  find  himself 
bereft  of  that  pure  and  heroic  counsellor,  just  at  his  entering 
into  life.  But  with  the  same  elasticity  which  sent  him  to  the 
grave,  he  is  busy  within  six  months  in  a  fresh  expedition.  If 
Meta  Incognita  be  not  worth  planting,  there  must  be,  so  Raleigh 
thinks,  a  vast  extent  of  coast  between  it  and  Florida,  which  is 
more  genial  in  climate,  perhaps  more  rich  in  produce  ;  and  he 
sends  Philip  Amadas  and  Arthur  Barlow  to  look  for  the  same, 
and  not  in  vain. 

On  these  Virginian  discoveries  we  shall  say  but  little.  Those 
who  wish  to  enjoy  them  should  read  them  in  all  their  naive 
freshness  in  the  originals  ;  they  will  subscribe  to  S.  T.  Cole 
ridge's  dictum,  that  no  one  now-a-days  can  write  travels  as  well 
as  the  old  worthies  could,  who  figure  in  Hakluyt  and  Purchas. 

But  we  return  to  the  question,  What  does  this  man  intend  to 
be  ?  A  discoverer  and  colonist ;  a  vindicator  of  some  part  at 
least  of  America  from  Spanish  claims?  We  fear  not  altogether, 
else  he  would  have  gone  himself  to  Virginia,  at  least  the  second 
voyage,  instead  of  sending  others.  But  here,  it  seems  to  us,  is 
the  fatal,  and  yet  pardonable  mistake,  which  haunts  the  man 
throughout.  He  tries  to  be  too  many  men  at  once.  Fatal : 
because,  though  he  leaves  his  trace  on  more  things  than  (per 
haps)  did  ever  one  man  before  or  since,  he,  strictly  speaking, 
conquers  nothing,  brings  nothing  to  a  consummation.  Virginia, 
Guiana,  the  History  of  the  World,  his  own  career  as  a  statesman 
— as  king,  (for  he  might  have  been  king  had  he  chosen,)  all  are 
left  unfinished.  And  yet  most  pardonable ;  for  if  a  man  feels 
that  he  can  do  many  different  things,  how  hard  to  teach  himself 
that  he  must  not  do  them  all !  How  hard  to  say  to  himself,  "  I 
must  cut  off  the  right  hand,  and  pluck  out  the  right  eye."  I 
must  be  less  than  myself,  in  order  really  to  be  any  thing.  I  must 
concentrate  my  powers  on  one  subject,  and  that  perhaps  by  no 
means  the  most  seemingly  noble  or  useful,  still  less  the  most 
pleasant,  and  forego  so  many  branches  of  activity  in  which  I 
might  be  so  distinguished,  so  useful."  This  is  a  hard  lesson. 
Raleigh  took  just  sixty-six  years  learning  it,  and  had  to  carry 
the  result  of  his  experience  to  the  other  side  of  the  dark  river, 
for  there  was  no  time  left  to  use  it  on  this  side.  Some  readers 
may  have  learnt  the  lesson  already.  If  so,  happy  and  blessed 
are  they.  But  let  them  not,  therefore,  exalt  themselves  above 
Walter  Raleigh  ;  for  that  lesson  is  (of  course)  soonest  learnt  by 
the  man  who  can  excel  in  few  things,  later  by  him  who  can 


16  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

excel  in   many,  and  latest  of  all  by  him  who,  like  Raleigh,  can 
excel  in  all. 

Space  prevents  us  from  going  into  details  about  the  earlier 
court-days  of  Raleigh.  He  rises  rapidly,  as  we  have  seen.  He 
has  an  estate  given  him  in  Ireland,  near  his  friend  Spenser, 
where  he  tries  to  do  well  and  wisely,  colonizing,  tilling,  and 
planting  it ;  but,  like  his  Virginia  expeditions,  principally  at 
second  hand.  For  he  has  swallowed  (there  is  no  denying  it) 
the  painted  bait.  He  will  discover,  he  will  colonize,  he  will  do 
all  manner  of  beautiful  things,  at  second  hand  :  but  he  himself 
will  be  a  courtier.  It  is  very  tempting.  Who  would  not,  at 
the  age  of  thirty,  have  wished  to  have  been  one  of  that  chosen 
band  of  geniuses  and  heroes  whom  Elizabeth  had  gathered  round 
her  ?  Who  would  not,  at  the  age  of  thirty,  have  given  his  pound 
of  flesh  to  be  captain  of  her  guard,  and  to  go  with  her  whither 
soever  she  went  ?  It  is  not  merely  the  intense  gratification  to 
carnal  vanity  (which,  if  any  man  denies  or  scoffs  at,  we  always 
mark  him  down  as  especially  guilty)  which  is  to  be  considered  ; 
but  the  real,  actual  honour,  in  the  mind  of  one  who  looked  on 
Elizabeth  as  the  most  precious  and  glorious  being  which  the 
earth  had  seen  for  centuries.  To  be  appreciated  by  her ;  to  be 
loved  by  her ;  to  serve  her ;  to  guard  her ;  what  could  man 
desire  more  on  earth  ? 

Beside,  he  becomes  a  member  of  Parliament  now,  and  Lord 
Warden  of  the  Stannaries  ;  business  which  of  course  keeps  him 
in  England  :  business  which  he  performs  (as  he  does  all  things) 
wisely  and  well.  Such  a  generation  as  this  ought  really  to 
respect  Raleigh  a  little  more,  if  it  be  only  for  his  excellence 
in  their  own  especial  sphere — that  of  business.  Raleigh  is  a 
thorough  man  of  business.  He  can  "  toil  terribly,"  and  what  is 
more,  toil  to  the  purpose.  In  all  the  everyday  affairs  of  life,  he 
remains  without  a  blot ;  a  diligent,  methodical,  prudent  man,  who, 
though  he  plays  for  great  stakes,  ventures  and  loses  his  whole 
fortune  again  and  again,  yet  never  seems  to  omit  the  "  doing  the 
duty  which  lies  nearest  him ;  "  never  gets  into  mean  money 
scrapes ;  never  neglects  tenants  or  duty  ;  never  gives  way  for 
one  instant  to  "  the  eccentricities  of  genius." 

If  he  had  done  so,  be  sure  that  we  should  have  heard  of  it. 
For  no  man  can  become  what  he  has  become  without  making 
many  an  enemy  ;  and  he  has  his  enemies  already.  On  which 
statement  naturally  occurs  the  question — why?  An  important 
question  too ;  because  several  of  his  later  biographers  seem  to 
have  running  in  their  minds  some  such  train  of  thought  as  this — 
Raleigh  must  have  been  a  bad  fellow,  or  he  would  not  have  had 
so  many  enemies ;  and  because  he  was  a  bad  fellow,  there  is  an 


SIR   WALTER  RALEIGH  AND    HIS   TIME.  17 

a  priori  reason  that  charges  against  him  are  true.  Whether 
this  be  arguing  in  a  circle  or  not,  it  is  worth  searching  out  the 
beginning  of  this  enmity,  and  the  reputed  causes  of  it.  In  after 
years  it  will  be,  because  he  is  "damnable  proud;"  because  he 
hated  Essex,  and  so  forth :  of  which  in  their  places.  But  what 
is  the  earliest  count  against  him  ?  Naunton  (who  hated  Raleigh, 
and  was  moreover  a  rogue  and  a  bad  fellow)  has  no  reason  to 
give,  but  that  the  queen  took  him  for  a  kind  of  oracle,  which 
much  nettled  them  all ;  yea,  those  he  relied  on  began  to  take 
this  his  sudden  favour  for  an  alarm  ;  to  be  sensible  of  their  own 
supplantation,  and  to  project  his ;  which  shortly  made  him  to 
sing,  "  Fortune  my  foe." 

Now,  be  this  true  or  not,  and  we  do  not  put  much  faith  in  it, 
it  gives  no  reason  for  the  early  dislike  of  Raleigh,  save  the  some 
what  unsatisfactory  one  which  Cain  would  have  given  for  his 
dislike  of  Abel.  Moreover,  Mr.  Tytler  gives  a  letter  of  Essex's, 
written  as  thoroughly  in  the  Cain  spirit  as  any  we  ever  read, 
and  we  wonder  that  after,  as  he  says,  first  giving  that  letter  to 
the  world,  he  could  have  found  courage  to  repeat  the  old  senti- 
mentalism  about  the  "  noble  and  unfortunate"  Earl.  His  hatred 
of  Raleigh  (which,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  Raleigh  not  only 
bears  patiently,  but  requites  with  good  deeds  as  long  as  he  can) 
springs,  by  his  own  confession,  simply  from  envy  and  disap 
pointed  vanity.  The  spoilt  boy  insults  Queen  Elizabeth  about 
her  liking  for  the  "  knave  Raleigh."  She,  "  taking  hold  of  one 
word  disdain,"  tells  Essex  that  "  there  was  no  such  cause  why  I 
should  thus  disdain  him."  On  which,  says  Essex,  "  as  near  as  I 
could  I  did  describe  unto  her  what  he  had  been,  and  what  he 
was ;  and  then  I  did  let  her  see,  whether  I  had  come  to  disdain 
his  competition  of  love,  or  whether  I  could  have  comfort  to  give 
myself  over  to  the  service  of  a  mistress  that  was  in  awe  of  such 
a  man.  I  spake  for  grief  and  choler  as  much  against  him  as  I 
could :  and  I  think  he  standing  at  the  door  might  very  well  hear 
the  worst  that  I  spoke  of  him.  In  the  end,  1  saw  she  was  re 
solved  to  defend  him,  and  to  cross  me."  Whereon  follows  a 
"  scene,"  the  naughty  boy  raging  and  stamping,  till  he  insults 
the  Queen,  and  calls  Raleigh  ua  wretch;"  whereon  poor  Eliza 
beth,  who  loved  the  coxcomb  for  his  father's  sake,  "  turned 
her  away  to  my  Lady  Warwick,"  and  Essex  goes  grumbling 
forth. 

On  which  letter,  written  before  a  single  charge  has  been 
brought,  (as  far  as  yet  known,  against  Raleigh,)  Mr.  Tytler  can 
only  observe,  that  it 4'  throws  much  light  on  the  jealousy  "  between 
Raleigh  and  Essex,  "  and  establishes  the  fact,  that  Elizabeth  de 
lighted  to  see  them  competing  for  her  love." 


18  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

This  latter  sentence  is  one  of  those  (too  common)  which  rouse 
our  indignation.  We  have  quoted  only  the  passage  which  Mr. 
Tytler  puts  in  italics,  as  proving  his  case  ;  but  let  any  reader 
examine  that  letter  word  by  word,  from  end  to  end,  and  say 
whether  even  Essex,  in  the  midst  of  his  passion,  selfishness,  and 
hatred,  lets  one  word  drop  which  hints  at  Elizabeth  "  delighting  " 
in  seeing  the  competition,  any  more  than  one  which  brings  a 
tangible  charge  against  Raleigh.  It  is  as  gratuitous  and  wanton 
a  piece  of  evil-speaking  as  we  ever  read  in  any  book  ;  yet,  we 
are  ashamed  to  say,  it  is  but  an  average  specimen  of  the  fairness 
with  which  any  fact  is  treated  now-a-days,  which  relates  to  the 
greatest  sovereign  whom  England  ever  saw,  the  "  Good  Queen 
Bess,"  of  whom  Cromwell  the  regicide  never  spoke  without  the 
deepest  respect  and  admiration. 

Raleigh's  next  few  years  are  brilliant  and  busy  ones  ;  and 
gladly,  did  space  permit  us,  would  we  give  details  of  those  bril 
liant  adventures  which  make  this  part  of  his  life  that  of  a  true 
knight-errant.  But  they  are  mere  episodes  in  the  history,  and 
we  must  pass  them  quickly  by,  only  saying  that  they  corroborate 
in  all  things  our  original  notion  of  the  man — just,  humane,  wise, 
greatly  daring  and  enduring  greatly ;  and  filled  writh  the  one 
fixed  idea,  which  has  grown  with  his  growth,  and  strengthened 
with  his  strength,  the  destruction  of  the  Spanish  power,  and  colo 
nization  of  America  by  English.  His  brother  Humphrey  makes 
a  second  attempt  to  colonize  Newfoundland,  and  perishes  as  hero 
ically  as  he  had  lived.  Raleigh,  undaunted  by  his  own  loss  in 
the  adventure  and  his  brother's  failure,  sends  out  a  fleet  of  his 
own  to  discover  to  the  southward,  and  finds  Virginia.  We  might 
spend  pages  on  this  beautiful  episode  on  the  simple  descriptions 
of  the  fair  new  land  which  the  sea-kings  bring  home  ;  on  the 
profound  (for  those  times  at  least)  knowledge  which  prompted 
Raleigh  to  make  the  attempt  in  that  particular  direction,  which 
had  as  yet  escaped  the  notice  of  the  Spaniards  ;  on  the  quiet 
patience  with  which,  undaunted  by  the  ill-success  of  the  first 
colonists,  he  sends  out  fleet  after  fleet,  to  keep  the  hold  which  he 
had  once  gained,  till,  unable  any  longer  to  support  the  huge  ex 
pense,  he  makes  over  his  patent  for  discovery  to  a  company  of 
merchants,  who  fare  for  many  years  as  ill  as  Raleigh  himself 
did  :  but  one  thing  wre  have  a  right  to  say,  that  to  this  one  man, 
under  the  providence  of  Almighty  God,  do  the  whole  United 
States  of  America  owe  their  existence.  The  work  was  double. 
The  colony,  however  small,  had  to  be  kept  in  possession  at  all 
hazards  ;  and  he  did  it.  But  that  was  not  enough.  Spain  must 
be  prevented  from  extending  her  operations  northward  from 
Florida ;  she  must  be  crippled  along  the  whole  east  coast  of 


SIE  WALTER   RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  19 

America.  And  Raleigh  did  that  too.  We  find  him  for  years 
to  come  a  part-adventurer  in  almost  every  attack  on  the  Span 
iards  ;  we  find  him  preaching  war  against  them  on  these  very 
grounds,  and  setting  others  to  preach  it  also.  Good  old  Hariot 
(Raleigh's  mathematical  tutor,  whom  he  sent  to  Virginia)  re 
echoes  his  pupil's  trumpet-blast.  Hooker,  in  his  epistle  dedica 
tory  of  his  Irish  History,  strikes  the  same  note,  and  a  right  noble 
one  it  is.  ".These  Spaniards  are  trying  to  build  up  a  world-tyr 
anny  by  rapine  and  cruelty.  You,  sir,  call  on  us  to  deliver  the 
earth  from  them,  by  doing  justly  and  loving  mercy  ;  and  we  will 
obey  you  !  "  is  the  answer  which  Raleigh  receives  (as  far  as  we 
can  find)  from  every  nobler-natured  Englishman. 

It  was  an  immense  conception :  a  glorious  one :  it  stood  out 
so  clear  :  there  was  no  mistake  about  its  being  the  absolutely 
right,  wise,  patriotic  thing :  and  so  feasible,  too,  if  Raleigh  could 
but  find  "  six  cents  hommes  qui  savaient  mourir."  But  that  was 
just  what  he  could  not  find.  He  could  draw  round  him,  and  did, 
by  the  spiritual  magnetism  of  his  genius,  many  a  noble  soul : 
but  he  could  not  organize  them,  as  he  seems  to  have  tried  to  do, 
into  a  coherent  body.  The  English  spirit  of  independent  action, 
never  stronger  than  in  that  age,  and  most  wisely  encouraged  (for 
other  reasons)  by  good  Queen  Bess,  was  too  strong  for  him. 
His  pupils  will  "  fight  on  their  own  hook  "  like  so  many  Yankee 
rangers  ;  quarrel  with  each  other ;  grumble  at  him.  For  the 
truth  is,  he  demands  of  them  too  high  a  standard  of  thought  and 
purpose.  He  is  often  a  whole  heaven  above  them  in  the  huge 
ness  of  his  imagination,  the  nobleness  of  his  motive  ;  and  Don 
Quixote  can  often  find  no  better  squire  than  Saneho  Panza. 
Even  glorious  Sir  Richard  Grenvil  makes  a  mess  of  it;  burns 
an  Indian  village  because  they  steal  a  silver  cup ;  throws  back 
the  colonization  of  Virginia  ten  years  with  his  over-strict  notions 
of  discipline  and  retributive  justice ;  and  Raleigh  requites  him 
for  his  offence  by  embalming  him,  his  valour  and  his  death,  not 
in  immortal  verse  but  in  immortal  prose.  The  True  Relation 
of  the  Fight  at  the  Azores,  gives  the  key-note  of  Raleigh's  heart. 
If  readers  will  not  take  that  as  the  text  on  which  his  whole  life 
is  a  commentary,  they  may  know  a  great  deal  about  him,  but 
him  they  will  never  know. 

The  game  becomes  fiercer  and  fiercer.  Blow  and  counter 
blow  between  the  Spanish  king  (for  the  whole  West-Indian 
commerce  was  a  government  job)  and  the  merchant-nobles  of 
England.  At  last,  the  Great  Armada  comes,  and  the  Great 
Armada  goes  again.  Venit,  vidit,  fugit,  as  the  medals  said  of 
it.  And  to  Walter  Raleigh's  counsel,  by  the  testimony  of  all 
contemporaries,  the  mighty  victory  is  to  be  principally  attributed. 


20  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

Where  all  men  did  heroically,  it  were  invidious  to  bestow  on 
him  alone  a  crown,  ob  patriam  servatam.  But  henceforth,  Eliz 
abeth  knows  well  that  she  has  not  been  mistaken  in  her  choice  ; 
and  Raleigh  is  better  loved  than  ever,  heaped  with  fresh  wealth 
and  honours.  And  who  deserves  them  better  ? 

The  immense  value  of  his  services  in  the  defence  of  England 
excuses  him,  in  our  eyes,  from  the  complaint  which  one  has  been 
often  inclined  to  bring  against  him, — why,  instead-  of  sending 
others  westward  ho,  did  he  not  go  himself?  Surely  he  could 
have  reconciled  the  jarring  instruments  with  which  he  was  work 
ing.  He  could  have  organized  such  a  body  of  men  as  perhaps 
never  went  out  before  or  since  on  the  same  errand.  He  could 
have  done  all  that  Cortez  did,  and  more  ;  and  done  it  more  justly 
and  mercifully. 

True.  And  here  seems  (as  far  as  little  folk  dare  judge  great 
folk)  to  have  been  his  mistake.  He  is  too  wide  for  real  success. 
He  has  too  many  plans ;  he  is  fond  of  too  many  pursuits.  The 
man  who  succeeds  is  generally  the  narrow  man ;  the  man  of  one 
idea,  who  works  at  nothing  but  that ;  sees  every  thing  only 
through  the  light  of  that ;  sacrifices  every  thing  to  that ;  the 
fanatic,  in  short.  By  fanatics,  whether  military,  commercial,  or 
religious,  and  not  by  "  liberal-minded  men  "  at  all,  has  the  world's 
work  been  done  in  all  ages.  Amid  the  modern  cants,  one  of 
the  most  mistaken  is  the  cant-  about  the  "  mission  of  genius," 
the  "  mission  of  the  poet."  Poets,  we  hear  in  some  quarters, 
are  the  anointed  kings  of  mankind, — at  least,  so  the  little  poets 
sing,  each  to  his  little  fiddle.  There  is  no  greater  mistake.  It 
is  the  practical,  prosaical  fanatic  who  does  the  work  ;  and  the 
poet,  if  he  tries  to  do  it,  is  certain  to  put  down  his  spade  every 
five  minutes,  to  look  at  the  prospect,  and  pick  flowers,  and 
moralize  on  dead  asses,  till  he  ends  a  "  Neron  malgre  lui-meme," 
fiddling  melodiously  while  Rome  is  burning.  And  perhaps  this 
is  the  secret  of  Raleigh's  failure.  He  is  a  fanatic  no  doubt, 
a  true  knight-errant:  but  he  is  too  much  of  a  poet  withal. 
The  sense  of  beauty  inthrals  him  at  every  step.  Gloriana's 
fairy  court,  with  its  chivalries  and  its  euphuisms,  its  masques 
and  its  tourneys,  and  he  the  most  charming  personage  in  it,  are 
too  charming  for  him — as  they  would  have  been  for  us,  reader  ; 
and  he  cannot  give  them  up,  and  go  about  the  one  work.  He 
justifies  his  double-mindedness  to  himself,  no  doubt,  as  he  does 
to  the  world,  by  working  wisely,  indefatigably,  bravely;  but 
still  he  has  put  his  trust  in  princes,  and  in  the  children  of  men. 
His  sin,  as  far  as  we  can  see,  is  not  against  man,  but  against 
God :  one  which  we  do  not  novv-a-days  call  a  sin,  but  a  weak 
ness.  Be  it  so.  God  punished  him  for  it,  swiftly  and  sharply ; 


SIR    WALTER  RALEIGH   AND   HIS   TIME.  21 

which  we  hold  to  be  a  sure  sign  that  God  also  forgave  him 
for  it. 

So  he  stays  at  home,  spends,  sooner  or  later,  £40,000  on  Vir 
ginia,  writes  charming  court-poetry  with  Oxford,  Buckhurst,  and 
Paget,  brings  over  Spenser  from  Ireland,  and  introduces  Colin 
Clout  to  Gloriana,  who  loves — as  who  would  not  have  loved  ? — 
that  most  beautiful  of  faces  and  of  souls  ;  helps  poor  puritan 
Udall  out  of  his  scrape  as  far  as  he  can  ;  begs  for  Captain  Spring, 
begs  for  many  more,  whose  names  are  only  known  by  being  con 
nected  with  some  good  deed  of  his.  "  When,  Sir  Walter,"  asks 
Queen  Bess,  "  will  you  cease  to  be  a  beggar  ?  "  "  When  your 
Majesty  ceases  to  be  a  benefactor."  Perhaps  it  is  in  these  days 
that  he  sets  up  his  "  office  of  address," — some  sort  of  agency  for 
discovering  and  relieving  the  wants  of  worthy  men.  So  all 
seems  to  go  well.  If  he  has  lost  in  Virginia,  he  has  gained  by 
Spanish  prizes ;  his  wine-patent  is  bringing  him  in  a  large 
revenue,  and  the  heavens  smile  on  him.  "  Thou  sayest,  I  am 
rich,  and  increased  in  goods,  and  have  need  of  nothing  ;  and 
knowest  not  that  thou  art  poor  and  miserable  and  blind  and 
naked."  Thou  shalt  learn  it,  then,  and  pay  dearly  for  thy  lesson. 

For,  in  the  meanwhile,  Raleigh  falls  into  a  very  great  sin,  for 
which,  as  usual  with  his  elect,  God  inflicts  swift  and  instant  pun 
ishment  ;  on  which,  as  usual,  biographers  talk  much  unwisdom. 
He  seduces  Miss  Throgmorton,  one  of  the  maids  of  honour. 
Elizabeth  is  very  wroth  ;  and  had  she  not  good  reason  to  be 
wroth  ?  Is  it  either  fair  or  reasonable  to  talk  of  her  "  demanding 
a  monopoly  of  love,"  and  "  being  incensed  at  the  temerity  of  her 
favourite,  in  presuming  to  fall  in  love  and  marry  without  her 
consent  ?  "  Away  with  such  prurient  cant.  The  plain  facts  are  : 
that  a  man  nearly  forty  years  old  abuses  his  wonderful  gifts  of 
body  and  mind,  to  ruin  a  girl  nearly  twenty  years  younger  than 
himself.  What  wonder  if  a  virtuous  woman  (and  Queen  Eliza 
beth  was  virtuous)  thought  it  a  base  deed,  and  punished  it  accord 
ingly  ?  There  is  no  more  to  be  discovered  in  the  matter,  save 
by  the  vulturine  nose,  which  smells  a  carrion  in  every  rose-bud. 
Raleigh  has  a  great  attempt  on  the  Plate-fleets  in  hand ;  he  hur 
ries  off,  from  Chatham,  and  writes  to  young  Cecil,  on  the  10th 
of  March,  "  I  mean  not  to  come  away,  as  some  say  I  will,  for 
fear  of  a  marriage,  and  I  know  not  what.  .  .  .  For  I  pro 
test  before  God,  there  is  none  on  the  face  of  the  earth  that  I 
would  be  fastened  unto." 

This  famous  passage  is  one  of  those  over  which  the  virtuosity 
of  modern  times,  rejoicing  in  evil,  has  hung  so  fondly,  as  giving 
melancholy  proof  of  the  "duplicity  of  Raleigh's  character;"  as 
if  a  man  who  once  in  his  life  had  told  an  untruth  was  proved  by 


22  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

that  fact  to  be  a  rogue  from  birth  to  death:  while  others  have 
kindly  given  him  the  benefit  of  a  doubt  whether  the  letter  were 
not  written  after  a  private  marriage,  and  therefore  Raleigh, 
being  "joined  unto"  some  one  already,  had  a  right  to  say,  that 
he  did  not  wish  to  be  joined  to  any  one.  But  we  do  not  con 
cur  in  this  doubt,  Four  months  after,  Sir  Edward  Stafford 
writes  to  Anthony  Bacon,  "If  you  have  any  thing  to  do  with  Sir 
W.  R.,  or  any  love  to  make  to  Mistress  Throgmorton,  at  the 
Tower  to-morrow  you  may  speak  with  them."  This  implies  that 
no  marriage  had  yet  taken  place.  And  surely,  if  there  had  been 
a  private  marriage,  two  people  who  were  about  to  be  sent  to  the 
Tower  for  their  folly  would  have  made  the  marriage  public  at 
once,  as  the  only  possible  self-justification.  But  it  is  a  pity,  in 
our  opinion,  that  biographers,  before  pronouncing  upon  that  sup 
posed  lie  of  Raleigh's,  had  taken  the  trouble  to  find  out  what 
the  words  mean.  In  their  virtuous  haste  to  prove  him  a  liar, 
they  have  overlooked  the  fact  that  the  words,  as  they  stand,  are 
unintelligible,  and  the  argument  self-contradictory.  He  wants 
to  prove,  we  suppose,  that  he  does  not  go  to  sea  for  fear  of  being 
forced  to  marry  Miss  Throgmorton.  It  is.  at  least,  an  unexpected 
method  of  so  doing  in  a  shrewd  man  like  Raleigh,  to  say  that  he 
wishes  to  marry  no  one  at  all.  "  Don't  think  that  I  run  away 
for  fear  of  a  marriage,  for  I  do  not  wish  to  marry  any  one  on  the 
face  of  the  earth,"  is  a  speech  which  may  prove  Raleigh  to  have 
been  a  goose,  but  we  must  understand  it  before  we  can  say  that 
it  proves  him  a  rogue.  If  we  had  received  such  a  letter  from  a 
friend,  we  should  have  said  at  once,  "  Why  the  man,  in  his  hurry 
and  confusion,  has  omitted  the  word;  he  must  have  meant  to 
write,  not  '  There  is  none  on  the  face  of  the  earth  that  I  would 
be  fastened  to,'  but  '  There  is  none  on  the  face  of  the  earth  that 
I  would  rather  be  fastened  to,' "  which  would  at  once  make  sense, 
and  suit  fact.  For  Raleigh  not  only  married  Miss  Throgmorton 
forthwith,  but  made  her  the  best  of  husbands.  Our  conjectural 
emendation  may  go  for  what  it  is  worth  ;  but  that  the  passage,  as 
it  stands  in  Murdin's  State  Papers  (the  MSS.  we  have  not  seen) 
is  either  misquoted,  or  miswritten  by  Raleigh  himself,  we  cannot 
doubt.  He  was  not  one  to  think  nonsense,  even  if  he  scribbled  it. 
The  Spanish  raid  turns  out  well.  Raleigh  overlooks  Eliza 
beth's  letters  of  recall  till  he  finds  out  that  the  king  of  Spain  has 
stopped  the  Plate-fleet  for  fear  of  his  coming,  and  then  returns, 
sending  on  Sir  John  Burrough  to  the  Azores,  where  he  takes  The 
Great  Carack,  the  largest  prize  (1600  tons)  which  had  ever 
been  brought  into  England.  We  would  that  space  allowed  of 
a  sketch  of  that  gallant  fight  as  it  stands  in  the  pages  of  Hak- 
luyt.  Suffice  it  that  it  raised  Raleigh  once  more  to  wealth, 


SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  23 

though  not  to  favour.  Shortly  after  he  returns  from  the  sea,  he 
finds  himself,  where  he  deserves  to  be,  in  the  Tower,  where  he 
does  more  than  one  thing  which  brought  him  no  credit.  How 
far  we  are  justified  in  calling  his  quarrel  with  Sir  George  Carew, 
his  keeper,  for  not  letting  him  "  disguise  himself,  and  get  into  a 
pair  of  oars  to  ease  his  mind  but  with  a  sight  of  the  queen,  or 
his  heart  would  break,"  hypocrisy,  is  a  very  different  matter. 
Honest  Arthur  Gorges,  (a  staunch  friend  of  Raleigh's,)  tells  the 
story  laughingly  and  lovingly,  as  if  he  thought  Raleigh  sincere, 
but  somewhat  mad  ;  and  yet  honest  Gorges  has  a  good  right  to 
say  a  bitter  thing ;  for  after  having  been  "  ready  to  break  with 
laughing  at  seeing  them  two  brawl  and  scramble  like  madmen, 
and  Sir  George's  new  periwig  torn  off  his  crown,"  he  sees  "  the 
iron  walking  "  and  daggers  out,  and,  playing  the  part  of  him  who 
taketh  a  dog  by  the  ears,  "  purchased  such  a  rap  on  the  knuckles, 
that  I  wished  both  their  pates  broken,  and  so  with  much  ado 
they  staid  their  brawl  to  see  my  bloody  fingers,"  and  then  set  to 
work  to  abuse  the  hapless  peacemaker.  After  which  things 
Raleigh  writes  a  letter  to  Cecil,  which  is  still  more  offensive  in 
the  eyes  of  virtuous  biographers, — how  "  his  heart  was  never 
broken  till  this  day,  when  he  hears  the  queen  goes  so  far  off", 
whom  he  followed  with  love  and  desire  on  so  many  journeys,  and 
am  now  left  behind  in  a  dark  prison  all  alone."  .  .  .  .  "I 
that  was  wont  to  behold  her  riding  like  Alexander,  hunting  like 
Diana,  walking  like  Venus,  the  gentle  wind  blowing  her  fair  hair 
about  her  pure  cheeks,"  and  so  forth,  in  a  style  in  which  the 
vulturine  nose  must  needs  scent  carrion,  just  because  the  roses 
are  more  fragrant  than  the  vulturine  taste  should  be  in  a  world 
wrhere  all  ought  to  be  either,  vultures,  or  carrion  for  their  dinners. 
As  for  his  despair,  had  he  not  good  reason  to  be  in  despair  ?  By 
his  own  sin,  he  has  hurled  himself  down  the  hill  which  he  has  so 
painfully  climbed.  He  is  in  the  Tower — surely  no  pleasant  or 
hopeful  place  for  any  man.  Elizabeth  is  exceeding  wroth  with 
him  ;  and  what  is  worse,  he  deserves  what  he  has  got.  His 
whole  fortune  is  ventured  in  an  expedition  over  which  he  has  no 
control,  which  has  been  unsuccessful  in  its  first  object,  and  may 
be  altogether  unsuccessful  in  that  which  it  has  undertaken  as  a 
pis-aller,  and  so  leave  him  penniless.  There  want  not,  too,  those 
who  will  trample  on  the  fallen.  The  deputy  has  been  cruelly 
distraining  on  his  Irish  tenants  for  a  "  supposed  debt  of  his  to 
the  Queen  of  £400  for  rent,"  which  was  indeed  but  fifty  merks, 
and  which  was  paid,  and  has  carried  off  500  milch  kine  from  the 
poor  settlers  whom  he  has  planted  there,  and  forcibly  thrust  him 
out  of  possession  of  a  castle. 

Moreover,  the  whole  Irish  estates  are  likely  to  come  to  ruin, 


24  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

for  nothing  prevails  but  rascality  among  the  English  soldiers,  im 
potence  among  the  goveraors,  and  rebellion  among  the  natives. 
Three  thousand  Burkes  are  up  in  arms ;  his  "  prophecy  of  this 
rebellion  "  .ten  days  ago  was  laughed  at,  and  now  has  come  true  ; 
and  altogether,  Walter  Raleigh  and  all  belonging  to  him  is  in  as 
evil  case  as  was  ever  man  on  earth.  No  wonder,  poor  fellow,  if 
he  behowls  himself  lustily,  and  not  always  wisely,  to  Cecil,  and 
every  one  else  who  will  listen  to  him. 

As  for  his  fine  speeches  about  Elizabeth,  why  forget  the 
standing-point  from  which  such  speeches  were  made  ?  Over 
and  above  his  present  ruin,  it  was,  (and  ought  to  have  been,)  an 
utterly  horrible  and  unbearable  thing  to  Raleigh,  or  any  man,  to 
have  fallen  into  disgrace  with  Elizabeth  by  his  own  fault.  He 
feels  (and  perhaps  rightly)  that  he  is  as  it  were  excommunicate 
from  England,  and  the  mission  and  the  glory  of  England.  Instead 
of  being  as  he  was  till  now,  one  of  a  body  of  brave  men  work 
ing  together  in  one  great  common  cause,  he  has  cut  himself  off 
from  the  congregation  by  his  own  selfish  lust,  and  there  he  is  left 
alone  with  his  shame  and  his  selfishness.  We  must  try  to  realize 
to  ourselves  the  way  in  which  such  men  as  Raleigh  looked  not 
only  at  Elizabeth,  but  at  all  the  world.  There  was,  in  plain 
palpable  fact,  something  about  her,  her  history,  her  policy,  the 
times,  the  glorious  part  which  England,  and  she  as  the  incarna 
tion  of  the  then  English  spirit,  was  playing  upon  earth,  which 
raised  imaginative  and  heroical  souls  into  a  permanent  exaltation 
— a  "  fairy-land,"  as  they  called  it  themselves,  which  seems  to  us 
fantastic,  and  would  be  fantastic  in  us,  because  we  are  not  at 
their  work,  or  in  their  days.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  num 
ber  of  as  noble  men  as  ever  stood  together  on  the  earth,  did 
worship  this  woman,  fight  for  her,  toil  for  her,  risk  all  for  her, 
with  a  pure  chivalrous  affection  which  to  us  furnished  one  of  the 
beautiful  pages  in  all  the  book  of  history.  Blots  there  must 
needs  have  been,  and  inconsistencies,  selfishnesses,  follies ;  for 
they  too  were  men  of  like  passions  with  ourselves;  but  let  us 
look  at  the  fair  vision  as  a  whole,  and  thank  God  that  such  a 
thing  has  for  once  existed  even  imperfectly  on  this  sinful  earth, 
instead  of  playing  the  part  of  Ham,  and  falling  under  his  curse  ; 
the  penalty  of  slavishness,  cowardice,  loss  of  noble  daring,  which 
surely  falls  on  any  generation  which  is  "  banausos,"  to  use  Aris 
totle's  word — which  rejoices  in  its  forefathers'  shame,  and,  unable 
to  believe  in  the  nobleness  of  others,  is  unable  to  become  noble 
itself. 

As  for  the  "Alexander  and  Diana  "  affectations,  they  were  the 
language  of  the  time  ;  and  certainly  this  generation  has  no  rea 
son  to  find  fault  with  them,  or  with  a  good  deal  more  of  the 


SIR   WALTER   RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  25 

"  affectations "  and  "  flattery "  of  Elizabethan  times,  while  it 
listens  complacently  night  after  night  to  "  honourable  members  " 
complimenting  not  Queen  Elizabeth,  but  Sir  Jabesh  Windbag, 
Fiddle,  Faddle,  Red-tape,  and  party,  with  protestations  of  deepest 
respect  and  fullest  confidence  in  the  very  speeches  in  which  they 
bring  accusations  of  every  offence,  short  of  high-treason — to  be 
understood,  of  course,  in  a  "  parliamentary  sense,"  as  Mr.  Pick 
wick's  were  in  a  "  Pickwickian  "  one.  If  a  generation  of  Knoxes 
and  Mortons,  Burleighs  and  Raleighs,  shall  ever  arise  again,  one 
wonders  by  what  name  they  will  call  the  parliamentary  morality, 
and  parliamentary  courtesy  of  a  generation  which  has  meted  out 
such  measure  to  their  antitypes'  failings  ? 

"  But  Queen  Elizabeth  was  an  old  woman  then."  We  thank 
the  objector  even  for  that  "  then  ; "  for  it  is  much  now-a-days  to 
find  any  one  who  believes  that  Queen  Elizabeth  was  ever  young, 
or  who  does  not  talk  of  her  as  if  she  was  born  about  seventy 
years  of  age,  covered  with  rouge  and  wrinkles.  We  will  under 
take  to  say,  that  as  to  the  beauty  of  this  woman  there  is  a  greater 
mass  of  testimony,  and  from  the  very  best  judges  too,  than  there 
is  of  the  beauty  of  any  personage  in  history  ;  and  yet  it  has  be 
come  the  fashion  now  to  deny  even  that.  The  plain  facts  seem, 
that  she  was  very  graceful,  active,  accomplished  in  aH  outward 
matters,  of  a  perfect  figure,  and  of  that  style  of  intellectual  beauty, 
depending  on  expression,  which  attracted  (and  we  trust  always 
will  attract)  Britons,  far  more  than  that  merely  sensuous  loveli 
ness  in  which  no  doubt  Mary  Stuart  far  surpassed  her.  And  there 
seems  little  doubt,  that  like  many  Englishwomen,  she  retained 
her  beauty  to  a  very  late  period  in  life,  not  to  mention  that  she 
was,  in  1592,  just  at  that  age  of  rejuvenescence  which  makes 
many  a  woman  more  lovely  at  sixty  than  she  has  been  since  she 
was  thirty-five.  No  doubt,  too,  she  used  every  artificial  means 
to  preserve  her  famous  complexion  ;  and  quite  right  she  was. 
This  beauty  of  hers  had  been  a  talent  (as  all  beauty  is)  com 
mitted  to  her  by  God ;  it  had  been  an  important  element  in  her 
great  success  ;  men  had  accepted  it  as  what  beauty  of  form  and 
expression  generally  is,  an  outward  and  visible  sign  of  the  in 
ward  and  spiritual  grace ;  and  while  the  inward  was  unchanged, 
what  wonder  if  she  tried  to  preserve  the  outward  ?  If  she  was 
the  same,  why  should  she  not  try  to  look  the  same  ?  And  what 
blame  to  those  who  worshipped  her,  if.  knowing  that  she  was  the 
same,  they  too  should  fancy  that  she  looked  the  same — the 
Elizabeth  of  their  youth,  and  talk  as  if  the  fair  flesh,  as  well  as 
the  fair  spirit,  was  immortal  ?  Does  not  every  loving  husband 
do  so,  when  he  forgets  the  gray  hair  and  the  sunken  cheek,  and 
all  the  wastes  of  time,  and  sees  the  partner  of  many  joys  and 
2 


26  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

sorrows  not  as  she  has  become,  but  as  she  was,  ay,  and  is  to 
him,  and  will  be  to  him,  he  trusts,  through  all  eternity  ?  There 
is  no  feeling  in  these  Elizabethan  worshippers  which  we  have 
not  seen,  potential  and  crude,  again  and  again  in  the  best  and 
noblest  of  young  men  whom  we  have  met,  till  it  was  crushed 
in  them  by  the  luxury  of  effeminacy  and  unbelief  in  chivalry, 
which  is  the  sure  accompaniment  of  a  long  peace ;  which  war 
may  burn  up  with  beneficent  fire;  which,  to  judge  by  the  un 
expected  heroisms  and  chivalries  of  the  last  six  months,  it  is 
burning  up  already. 

But  we  must  hasten  on  now  ;  for  Raleigh  is  out  of  prison  in 
September,  and  by  the  next  spring  in  parliament,  speaking 
wisely  and  well,  especially  on  his  fixed  idea,  war  with  Spain, 
which  he  is  rewarded  for  forthwith  in  Father  Passon's  Andrea 
Philopatris  Respomio,  by  a  charge  of  founding  a  school  of 
Atheism  for  the  corruption  of  young  gentlemen  ;  a  charge  which 
Lord  Chief-Justice  Popham,  Protestant  as  he  is,  will  find  it  use 
ful  one  day  to  recollect. 

Elizabeth,  however,  now  that  he  has  married  the  fair  Throg- 
morton,  and  does  wisely  in  other  matters,  restores  him  to  favour. 
If  he  has  sinned,  he  has  suffered  :  but  he  is  as  useful  as  ever, 
now  that  his  senses  have  returned  to  him,  and  he  is  making 
good  speeches  in  parliament,  instead  of  bad  ones  to  weak  maidens  ; 
and  we  find  him  once  more  in  favour,  and  possessor  of  Sher- 
borne  Manor,  where  he  builds  and  beautifies,  with  "groves  and 
gardens  of  much  variety  and  great  delight."  And  God,  too, 
seems  to  have  forgiven  him  ;  perhaps  has  forgiven  ;  for  there 
the  fair  Throgmorton  brings  him  a  noble  boy.  Ut  sis  vitalis 
metuo,  puer  !  " 

Raleigh  will  quote  David's  example  one  day,  not  wisely  or 
well.  Does  David's  example  ever  cross  him  now,  and  these  sad 
words, — "  The  Lord  hath  put  away  thy  sin,  .  .  .  neverthe 
less  the  child  that  is  born  unto  thee  shall  die  ?  " 

Let  that  be  as  it  may,  all  is  sunshine  once  more.  Sherborne 
Manor,  a  rich  share  in  the  great  carack,  a  beautiful  wife,  a  child  ; 
what  more  does  this  man  want  to  make  him  happy  ?  Why 
should  he  not  settle  down  upon  his  lees,  like  ninety-nine  out  of 
the  hundred,  or  at  least  try  a  peaceful  and  easy  path  toward  more 
"  praise  and  pudding  ?  "  The  world  answers,  or  his  biographers 
answer  for  him,  that  he  needs  to  reinstate  himself  in  his  mis 
tress's  affection  ;  which  is  true  or  not,  according  as  we  take  it. 
If  they  mean  thereby,  as  most  seem  to  mean,  that  it  was  a  mere 
selfish  and  ambitious  scheme  by  which  to  wriggle  into  court 
favour  once  more — why,  let  them  mean  it:  we  shall  only  ob 
serve,  that  the  method  which  Raleigh  took  was  a  rather  more 


SIR   WALTER   RALEIGH   AND   HIS   TIME.  27 

dangerous  and  self-sacrificing  one  than  courtiers  are  wont  to  take. 
But  if  it  be  meant  that  Walter  Raleigh  spoke  somewhat  thus 
with  himself, — "  I  have  done  a  base  and  dirty  deed,  and  have 
been  punished  for  it.  I  have  hurt  the  good  name  of  a  sweet 
woman  who  loves  me,  and  whom  I  find  to  be  a  treasure;  and 
God,  instead  of  punishing  me  by  taking  her  from  me,  has  ren 
dered  me  good  for  evil  by  giving  her  to  me.  .  I  have  justly 
offended  a  mistress  whom  I  worship,  and  who,  after  having 
shown  her  just  indignation,  has  returned  me  evil  for  good  by 
giving  me  these  fair  lands  of  Sherborne,  and  only  forbid  me  her 
presence  till  the  scandal  has  passed  away.  She  sees,  and  re 
wards  my  good  in  spate  of  my  evil ;  and  I,  too,  know  that  I  am 
better  than  I  have  seemed  ;  that  I  am  fit  for  nobler  deeds  than 
seducing  maids  of  honour.  How  can  I  prove  that  ?  How  can 
I  redeem  my  lost  name  for  patriotism  and  public  daring  ?  How 
can  I  win  glory  for  my  wife,  seek  that  men  shall  forget  her  past 
shame  in  the  thought,  '  She  is  Walter  Raleigh's  wife  ? '  How 
can  I  show  my  mistress  that  I  loved  her  all  along,  that  I  ac 
knowledge  her  bounty,  her  mingled  justice  and  mercy  ?  How 
can  I  render  to  God  for  all  the  benefits  which  He  has  done  unto 
me  ?  How  can  I  do  a  deed  the  like  of  which  was  never  done  in 
England  ?  " 

If  all  this  had  passed  through  Walter  Raleigh's  mind,  what 
could  we  say  of  it,  but  that  it  was  the  natural  and  rational  feel 
ing  of  an  honourable  and  right-hearted  man,  burning  to  rise  to 
the  level  which  he  knew  ought  to  be  his,  because  he  knew  that 
he  had  fallen  below  it  ?  Arid  what  right  better  way  of  testify 
ing  these  feelings  than  to  do  what,  as  we  shall  see,  Raleigh  did  ? 
What  right  have  we  to  impute  to  him  lower  motives  than  these, 
while  we  confess  that  these  righteous  and  noble  motives  would 
have  been  natural  and  rational; — indeed,  just  what  we  flatter 
ourselves  that  we  should  have  felt  in  his  place  ?  Of  course,  in 
his  grand  scheme,  the  thought  came  in,  "  And  I  shall  win  to 
myself  honour,  and  glory,  and  wealth," — of  course.  And  pray, 
sir,  does  it  not  come  in  in  your  grand  schemes  ;  and  yours  ;  and 
yours  ?  If  you  made  a  fortune  to-morrow  by  some  wisely  and 
benevolently  managed  factory,  would  you  forbid  all  speech  of 
the  said  wisdom  and  benevolence,  because  you  had  intended  that 
wisdom  and  benevolence  should  pay  you  a  good  percentage  ? 
Are  Price's  Patent  Candle  Company  the  less  honourable  and 
worthy  men,  because  their  righteousness  has  proved  to  be  a  good 
investment  ?  Away  with  cant,  and  let  him  that  is  without  sin 
among  you  cast  the  first  stone. 

So  Raleigh  hits  upon  a  noble  project ;  a  desperate  one,  true : 
but  he  will  do  it  or  die.  He  will  leave  pleasant  Sherborne,  and 


28  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

the  bosom  of  the  beautiful  bride,  and  the  first-born  son  ;  and  all 
which  to  most  makes  life  worth  having,  and  which  Raleigh  en 
joys  more  intensely  (for  he  is  a  poet,  and  a  man  of  strong  ner 
vous  passions  withal)  than  most  men.  But, — 

"  I  eould  not  love  thee,  dear,  so  much, 
Loved  I  not  honour  more." 

And  he  will  go  forth  to  endure  heat,  hunger,  fever,  danger  of 
death  in  battle,  danger  of  the  Inquisition,  rack  and  stake,  in 
search  of  El  Dorado.  What  so  strange  in  that?  We  have 
known  half-a-dozen  men  who,  in  his  case,  and  conscious  of  his 
powers,  would  have  done  the  same  from  the  same  noble  motive. 

He  begins  prudently  ;  and  sends  a  Devonshire  man,  Captain 
Whiddon,  (probably  one  of  the  Whiddons  of  beautiful  Chagford,) 
to  spy  out  the  Orinoco.  He  finds  that  the  Spaniards  are  there 
already  ;  that  Berreo,  who  has  attempted  El  Dorado  from  the 
westward,  starting  from  New  Granada  and  going  down  the  rivers, 
is  trying  to  settle  on  the  Orinoco  mouth ;  that  he  is  hanging  the 
poor  natives,  encouraging  the  Caribs  to  hunt  them  and  sell  them 
for  slaves,  imprisoning  the  Caciques  to  extort  their  gold, 'tortur 
ing,  ravishing,  kidnapping,  and  conducting  himself  as  was  usual 
among  Spaniards  of  those  days. 

Raleigh's  spirit  is  stirred  within  him.  If  "  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin"  excites  our  just  wrath,  how  must  the  history  of  such 
things  have  excited  Raleigh's,  as  he  remembered  that  these 
Spaniards  are  as  yet  triumphant  in  iniquity,  and  as  he  remem 
bered,  too,  that  these  same  men  are  the  sworn  foes  of  England, 
her  liberty,  her  Bible,  and  her  queen?  What  a  deed,  to  be 
beforehand  with  them  for  once!  To  dispossess  them  of  one 
corner  of  that  western  world,  where  they  have  left  no  trace  but 
blood  and  flame  !  He  will  go  himself;  he  will  find  El  Dorado 
and  its  golden  Emperor;  and,  instead  of  conquering,  plundering, 
and  murdering  him,  as  Cortez  did  Montezuma,  and  Pizarro  Ata- 
kuallpa,  he  will  show  him  English  strength,  espouse  his  quarrel 
against  the  Spaniards  ;  make  him  glad  to  become  Queen  Eliza 
beth's  vassal  tributary,  leave  him  perhaps  a  body  guard  of  Eng 
lish  veterans,  perhaps  colonize  his  country,  and  so  at  once  avenge 
and  protect  the  oppressed  Indians,  and  fill  the  Queen's  treasury 
with  the  riches  of  a  land  equal,  if  not  superior,  to  Peru  and 
Mexico. 

Such  is  his  dream  ;  vague,  perhaps  :  but  far  less  vague  than 
those  with  which  Cortez  and  Pizarro  started,  and  succeeded. 
After  a  careful  survey  of  the  whole  matter,  we  give  it  as  our 
deliberate  opinion,  that  Raleigh  was  more  reasonable  in  his 
attempt,  and  had  more  fair  evidence  of  its  feasibility,  than  either 


SIK  WALTEE  RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  29 

Cortez  or  Pizarro  had  for  theirs.  It  is  a  bold  assertion.  If  any 
reader  doubts  its  truth,  he  cannot  do  better  than  to  read  the 
whole  of  the  documents  connected  with  the  two  successful,  and 
the  one  unsuccessful,  attempts  at  finding  a  golden  kingdom. 
Let  them  read  first  Prescott's  Conquests  at  Mexico  and  Peru, 
and  then  SchomburgkV  edition  of  Raleigh's  Guiana.  They  will 
at  least  confess,  when  they  have  finished,  that  truth  is  stranger 
than  fiction. 

Of  Raleigh's  credulity  in  believing  in  El  Dorado,  much  has 
been  said.  We  are  sorry  to  find  even  so  wise  a  man  as  Sir 
Richard  Schomburgk,  after  bearing  good  testimony  to  Raleigh's 
wonderful  accuracy  about  all  matters  which  he  had  an  opportu 
nity  of  observing,  using  this  term  of  credulity.  We  will  do  battle 
on  that  point  even  with  Sir  Richard,  and  ask  by  what  right  the 
word  is  used  ?  First,  Raleigh  says  nothing  about  El  Dorado,  (as 
every  one  is  forced  to  confess,)  but  what  Spaniard  on  Spaniard 
had  been  saying  for  fifty  years.  So  the  blame  of  credulity  ought 
to  rest  with  the  Spaniards,  from  Philip  von  Huten,  Orellana,  and 
George  of  Spires,  upward  to  Berreo.  But  it  rests  really  with  no 
one.  For  nothing,  if  we  will  examine  the  documents,  is  told  of 
the  riches  of  El  Dorado  which  had  not  been  found  to  be  true,  and 
seen  by  the  eyes  of  men  still  living,  in  Peru  and  Mexico.  Not 
one  tenth  of  America  had  been  explored,  and  already  two  El 
Dorados  had  been  found  and  conquered.  What  more  rational 
than  to  suppose  that  there  was  a  third,  a  fourth,  a  fifth,  in  the 
remaining  eight  tenths  ?  The  reports  of  El  Dorado  among  the 
savages  were  just  of  the  same  kind  as  those  by  which  Cortez  and 
Pizarro  hunted  out  Mexico  and  Peru,  saving  that  they  were  far 
more  widely  spread,  and  confirmed  by  a  succession  of  adven 
turers.  We  entreat  readers  to  examine  this  matter,  in  Raleigh, 
Schomburgk,  Humboldt,  and  Condamine,  and  judge  for  them 
selves.  As  for  Hume's  accusations,  one  passes  them  by  as 
equally  silly  and  shameless,  only  saying  for  the  benefit  of  read 
ers,  that  they  have  been  refuted  completely,  by  every  one  who 
has  written  since  Hume's  days  :  and  to  those  who  are  induced  to 
laugh  at  Raleigh  for  believing  in  Amazons,  and  "men  whose 
heads  do  grow  beneath  their  shoulders,"  we  can  only  answer 
thus. 

About  the  Amazons,  Raleigh  told  what  he  was  told ;  what  the 
Spaniards  who  went  before  him,  and  Condamine  who  came  after 
him,  were  told  ;  Hurnboldt  thinks  the  story  possibly  founded  on 
fact ;  and  we  are  ready  to  say,  that  after  reviewing  all  that  has 
been  said  thereon,  it  does  seem  to  us  the  simplest  solution  of  the 
matter  just  to  believe  it  true ;  to  believe  that  there  was,  about 
his  time,  or  a  little  before,  somewhere  about  the  upper  Orinoco, 


30  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

a  warlike  "community  of  women,  (Humboldt  shows  how  likely 
such  would  be  to  spring  up,  where  women  flee  from  their  male 
tyrants  into  the  forests.)  As  for  the  fable  which  connected  them 
with  the  lake  Manoa,  and  the  city  of  El  Dorado,  we  can  only 
answer,  "  If  not  true  there  and  then,  it  is  true  elsewhere  now  ;  " 
for  the  Amazonian  guards  of  the  King  of  Dahomey  at  this  mo 
ment,  as  all  know,  surpass  in  strangeness  and  in  ferocity  all  that 
has  been  reported  of  the  Orinocan  viragos,  and  thus  prove  once 
more,  that  truth  is  stranger  than  fiction. 

Beside  ;  and  here  we  stand  stubborn,  regardless  of  gibes  and 
sneers  :  it  is  not  yet  proven  that  there  was  not  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  some  rich  and  civilized  kingdom  like  Peru  or  Mexico, 
in  the  interior  of  South  America.     Sir  Richard  Schomburgk  has 
disproved  the  existence  of  Lake  Parima:  but  it  will  take  a  long 
time,  and  more   explorers  than  one,  to  prove  that  there  are  no 
ruins  of  ancient  cities,  such  as  Stephens  stumbled  on  in  Yucatan, 
still  buried  in   the  depths  of  the  forests.      Fifty  years   of  ruin 
would  suffice  to  wrap  them  in  a  leafy  veil  which  would  hide  them 
from  every  one  who  did  not  literally  run  against  them.     Tribes 
would  die  out,  or  change  place,  (as  the  Atures,  and  many  other 
great  nations  have  done  in  those  parts,)  and  every  traditional  rec 
ord  of  them  perish  gradually,  (for  it  is  only  gradually  and  lately 
that  it  has  perished  ;)  while  if  it  be  asked,  What  has  become  of 
the  people  themselves  ?   the  answer  is,  that  when  any  race  (like 
most  of  the  American  races  in  the  sixteenth  century)  is  in  a 
dying  state,  it  hardly  needs  war  to  thin  it  down,  and  reduce  the 
remnant  to  savagery.     Greater  nations  than  El  Dorado  was  even 
supposed  to  be,  have  vanished  ere  now,  and  left  not  a  trace  be 
hind  ;  and  so  may  they.  But  enough  of  this.  We  leave  fhe  quarrel 
to  that  honest  and  patient  warder  of  tourneys,  Old  Time,  who  will 
surely  do  right  at  last,  and  go  on  to  the  dog-headed  worthies  with 
out  necks,  and  long  hair  hanging  down  behind,  who,  as  a  cacique 
told  Raleigh,  that  "  they  had  of  late  years  slain  many  hundreds 
of  his  father's  people,"  and  in  whom   even  Humboldt  was  not 
always  allowed  (he  says)  to  disbelieve,  (so  much  for  Hume's  scoff 
at  Raleigh  as  a  liar,)  one  old  cacique  boasting  to  him  that  he  had 
seen  them  with  his  own  eyes.     Humboldt's  explanation  is,  that 
the  Caribs,  being  the  cleverest  and  strongest  Indians,  are  also  the 
most  imaginative,  and  therefore,  being  fallen  children  of  Adam, 
the  greatest  liars,  and  that  they  invented  both  El  Dorado  and 
the  dog-heads  out  of  pure  wickedness.     Be  it  so.     But  all  lies 
crystallize  round  some  nucleus  of  truth  ;  and  it  really  seems  to 
us  nothing  very  wonderful,  if  the  story  should  be  on  the  whole 
true,  and  that  these  worthies  were  in  the  habit  of  dressing  them 
selves  up,  like  foolish  savages  as  they  were,  in  the  skins°  of  the 


SIR   WALTER   RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  31 

Aguara  dog,  with  what  not  of  stuffing,  and  tails,  and  so  forth,  in 
order  to  astonish  the  weak  minds  of  the  Caribs,  just  as  the  Red 
Indians  dress  up  in  their  feasts  as  bears,  wolves,  and  deer,  with 
fox  tails,  false  bustles  of  bison  skin,  and  so  forth.  There  are 
plenty  of  traces  of  such  foolish  attempts  at  playing  "  bogy  "  in 
the  history  of  savages  even  of  our  own  Teutonic  forefathers  ; 
and  this  we  suspect  to  be  the  simple  explanation  of  the  whole 
mare's  nest.  As  for  Raleigh  being  a  fool  for  believing  it ;  the 
reasons  he  gives  for  believing  it  are  very  rational ;  the  reasons 
Hume  gives  for  calling  him  a  fool  rest  merely  on  the  story's 
being  strange ;  on  which  grounds  one  might  disbelieve  most  mat 
ters  in  heaven  and  earth,  from  one's  own  existence  to  what  one 
sees  in  every  drop  of  water  under  the  microscope,  yea,  to  the 
growth  of  every  seed.  The  only  sound  proof  that  dog-headed 
men  are  impossible,  is  to  be  found  in  comparative  anatomy,  a 
science  of  which  Hume  knew  no  more  than  Raleigh,  and  which 
for  one  marvel  it  has  destroyed,  has  revealed  a  hundred.  We 
do  not  doubt,  that  if  Raleigh  had  seen  and  described  a  kangaroo, 
especially  its  all  but  miraculous  process  of  gestation,  Hume  would 
have  called  that  a  lie  also  :  but  we  will  waste  no  more  time 
in  proving  that  no  man  is  so  credulous  as  the  unbeliever — the 
man  who  has  such  mighty  and  world-embracing  faith  in  himself, 
that  he  makes  his  own  little  brain  the  measure  of  the  universe. 
Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead. 

He  sails  for  Guiana.  The  details  of  his  voyage  should  be 
read  at  length.  Everywhere  they  show  the  eye  of  a  poet  as 
well  as  of  a  man  of  science.  He  sees  enough  to  excite  his  hopes 
more  wildly  than  ever ;  he  goes  hundreds  of  miles  up  the  Ori 
noco  in  an  open  boat,  suffering  every  misery :  but  keeping  up 
the  hearts  of  his  men,  who  cry  out,  "  Let  us  go  on,  we  care  not 
how  far."  He  makes  friendship  with  the  caciques,  and  enters 
into  alliance  with  them  on  behalf  of  Queen  Elizabeth  against 
the  Spaniards.  Unable  to  pass  the  falls  of  the  Caroli,  and  the 
rainy  season  drawing  on,  he  returns,"beloved  and  honoured  by 
all  the  Indians,  boasting  that,  during  the  whole  time  he  was  there, 
no  woman  was  the  worse  for  any  man  of  his  crew.  Altogether, 
we  know  few  episodes  of  history,  so  noble,  righteous,  and  merci 
ful,  as  this  Guiana  voyage.  But  he  has  not  forgotten  the  Span 
iards.  At  Trinidad  he  attacks  and  destroys  (at  the  entreaty 
of  the  oppressed  Indians)  the  new  town  of  San  Jose,  takes  Ber- 
reo  prisoner,  and  delivers  from  captivity  five  caciques,  whom 
Berreo  kept  bound  in  one  chain,  "basting  their  bodies  with 
burning  bacon,"  (an  old  trick  of  the  Conquistadores,)  to  make 
them  discover  their  gold.  He  tells  them  that  he  was  "the 
servant  of  a  queen  who  was  the  greatest  cacique  of  the  north, 


32  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 


and  a  virgin  ;  who  had  more  caciqui  under  her  than  there  were 
trees  on  that  island  ;  that  she  was  an  enemy  of  the  Castellan! 
(Spaniards)  in  behalf  of  their  tyranny  and  oppression,  and  that 
she  delivered  all  such  nations  about  her  as  were  by  them  oppress 
ed,  and  having  freed  all  the  coast  of  the  northern  world  from 
their  servitude,  had  sent  me  to  free  them  also,  and  withal  to 
defend  the  country  of  Guiana  from  their  invasion  and  conquest." 
After  which  perfectly  true  and  rational  speech,  he  subjoins,  (as 
we  think  equally  honestly  and  rationally,)  "I  showed  them  her 
Majesty's  picture,  which  they  so  admired  and  honoured,  as  it  had 
been  easy  to  have  brought  them  idolaters  thereof." 

^  This  is  one  of  the  stock-charges  against  Raleigh,  at  which  all 
biographers  (except  quiet,  sensible  Oldys,  who,  dull  as  he  is,  is 
far  more  fair  and  rational  than  most  of  his  successors)  break  into 
virtuous  shrieks  of  "flattery,"  "meanness,"  "adulation,"  "  cour- 
tiership,"  and  so  forth.     Mr.  Napier  must  say  a  witty  thing  for 
once,  and  is  of  opinion  that  the  Indians  would  have  admire*d  far 
more  the  picture  of  a  "  red  monkey."     Sir  Richard  Schomburgk 
(unfortunately  for  the  red  monkey  theory,)    though    he    quite 
agrees  that  Raleigh's  flattery  was  very  shocking,  says,  that  from 
what  he  knows  (and  no  man  knows  more)  of  Indian  taste,  they 
would  have  far  preferred  to  the  portrait  which  Raleigh  showed 
them  (not  Mr.  Napier's  red  monkey,  but)  such  a  picture  as  that 
at  Hampton  Court,  in  which  Elizabeth  is  represented  in  a  fantas 
tic  dress.     Raleigh,  it  seems,  must  be  made  out  a  rogue  at  all 
risks,  though  by  the  most  opposite  charges.     Mr.  Napier  is  an 
swered,  however,  by  Sir  Richard,  and   Sir  Richard  is  answered, 
we  think,  by  the  plain  fact,  that,  of  course,  Raleigh's  portrait  was 
exactly  such  a  one  as  Sir  Richard  says  they  would  have  admired : 
a  picture  probably  in  a  tawdry  frame,  representing  Queen  Bess* 
just  as  queens  were  always  painted  then,  bedizened  with  "  brow- 
ches,  pearls,  and  owches,"  satin  and  ruff,  and  probably  with  crown 
on  head  and  sceptre  in  hand,  made  up  as  likely  as  not  expressly 
for  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  used.     In  the  name  of  all  sim 
plicity  and  honesty,  we  ask,  why  is  Raleigh  to  be  accused  of  say 
ing  that  the  Indians  admired  Queen  Elizabeth's  beauty,  when  he 
never  even  hints  at  it  ?     And  why  do  all  commentators  deliber 
ately  forget  the  preceding  paragraph,  Raleigh's  proclamation  to 
the  Indians,  and  the  circumstances  under  which  it  was  spoken  ? 
The  Indians  are  being  murdered,  ravished,  sold  for  slaves,  basted 
with  burning  fat,  and   grand   white  men    come    like   avengino- 
angels,  and  in  one  day  sweep  their  tyrants  out  of  the  land,  restore 
them  to  liberty  and  life,  and  say  to  them,  "A  great   Queen  far 
across  the  seas  has  sent  us  to  do  this.     Thousands  of  miles  away 
she  has  heard  of  your  misery,  and  taken  pity  on  you ;  and  if 


SIR   WALTER  RALEIGH  AND   HIS  TIME.  33 

you  will  be  faithful  to  her  she  will  love  you,  and  deal  justly  with 
you,  and  protect  you  against  these  Spaniards  who  are  devouring 
you  as  they  have  devoured  all  the  Indians  round  you,  and  for  a 
token  of  it — a  sign  that  we  tell  you  truth,  and  that  there  really  is 
such  a  great  Queen,  who  is  the  Indian's  friend — here  is  the 
picture  of  her."  What  wonder  if  the  poor  idolatrous  creatures 
had  fallen  down  and  worshipped  the  picture  (just  as  millions  do 
that  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  without  a  thousandth  part  as  sound  and 
practical  reason)  as  that  of  a  divine,  all-knowing,  all-merciful 
deliverer  ?  As  for  its  being  the  picture  of  a  beautiful  woman  or 
not,  they  would  never  think  of  that.  The  fair  complexion  and 
golden  hair  would  be  a  sign  to  them  that  she  belonged  to  the 
mighty  white  people,  even  if  there  were  no  bedizenment  of  jewels 
and  crowns  over  and  above  ;  and  that  would  be  enough  for  them. 
When  will  biographers  learn  to  do  common  justice  to  their 
fellow-men,  by  exerting  now  and  then  some  small  amount  of 
dramatic  imagination,  just  sufficient  to  put  themselves  for  a  mo 
ment  in  the  place  of  those  to  whom  they  write  ? 

So  ends  his  voyage :  in  which,  he  says,  "  from  myself  I  have 
deserved  no  thanks,  for  I  am  returned  a  beggar  and  withered. 
But  I  might  have  bettered  my  poor  estate  if  I  had  not  only  re 
spected  her  Majesty's  future  honour  and  riches.  It  became  not 
the  former  fortune  in  which  I  once  lived  to  go  journeys  of  pic- 
cory,"  (pillage  ;)  "  and  it  had  sorted  ill  with  the  offices  of  honour 
which,  by  her  Majesty's  grace,  I  hold  this  day  in  England,  to 
run  from  cape  to  cape,  and  place  to  place,  for  the  pillage  of  ordi 
nary  prizes." 

So  speaks  one  whom  it  has  been  the  fashion  to  consider  as  lit 
tle  better  than  a  pirate,  and  that,  too,  in  days  when  the  noblest 
blood  in  England  thought  no  shame  (as  indeed  it  was  no  shame) 
to  enrich  themselves  with  Spanish  gold.  But  so  it  is  throughout 
this  man's  life.  If  there  be  a  nobler  word  than  usual  to  be 
spoken,  or  a  more  wise  word  either,  if  there  be  a  more  chivalrous 
deed  to  be  done,  or  a  more  prudent  deed  either,  that  word  and 
that  deed  are  pretty  sure  to  be  Walter  Raleigh's. 

But  the  blatant  beast  has  been  busy  at  home  ;  and  in  spite  of 
Chapman's  heroical  verses,  he  meets  with  little  but  cold  looks. 
Never  mind.  If  the  world  will  not  help  to  do  the  deed,  he  will 
do  it  by  himself;  and  no  time  must  be  lost,  for  the  Spaniards  on 
their  part  will  lose  none.  So,  after  six  months,  the  faithful  Key- 
mis  sails  again,  again  helped  by  the  Lord  High  Admiral  and  Sir 
Robert  Cecil.  It  is  a  hard  race  for  one  private  man  against  the 
whole  power  and  wealth  of  Spain ;  and  the  Spaniard  has  been 
beforehand  with  them,  and  reoccupied  the  country.  They  have 
fortified  themselves  at  the  mouth  of  the  Caroli,  so  it  is  impossible 

2* 


34  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

to  get  to  the  gold  mines  ;  they  are  enslaving  the  wretched  In 
dians,  carrying  off  their  women,  intending  to  transplant  some 
tribes,  and  to  expel  others,  and  arming  cannibal  tribes  against 
the  inhabitants.  All  is  misery  and  rapine  ;  the  scattered  rem 
nant  comes  asking  piteously,  why  Raleigh  does  not  come  over 
to  deliver  them  ?  Have  the  Spaniards  slain  him,  too  ?  Keymis 
comforts  them  as  he  best  can  ;  hears  of  more  gold  mines,  and 
gets  back  safe,  a  little  to  his  own  astonishment,  for  eight-and- 
twenty  ships  of  war  have  been  sent  to  Trinidad,  to  guard  the 
entrance  to  El  Dorado,  not  surely,  as  Keymis  well  says,  "  to  keep 
us  only  from  tobacco."  A  colony  of  five  hundred  persons  is 
expected  from  Spain.  The  Spaniard  is  well  aware  of  the  rich 
ness  of  the  prize,  says  Keymis,  who  all  through  shows  himself  a 
worthy  pupil  of  his  master.  A  careful,  observant  man  he  seems 
to  have  been,  trained  by  that  great  example  to  overlook  no  fact, 
even  the  smallest.  He  brings  home  lists  of  rivers,  towns,  ca 
ciques,  poison-herbs,  words,  what  not ;  he  has  fresh  news  of  gold, 
spleen-stones,  kidney-stones,  and  some  fresh  specimens :  but  be 
that  as  it  may,  he,  "  without  going  as  far  as  his  eyes  can  warrant, 
can  promise  Brazil-wood,  honey,  cotton,  balsamum,  and  drugs,  to 
defray  charges."  He  would  fain  copy  Raleigh's  style,  too,  and, 
"  whence  his  lamp  had  oil,  borrow  light  also,"  "  seasoning  his  un 
savoury  speech  "  with  some  of  the  "  leaven  of  Raleigh's  dis 
course."  Which,  indeed,  he  does  even  to  little  pedantries  and 
attempts  at  classicality,  and  after  professing  that  "  himself  and 
the  remnant  of  his  few  years,  he  hath  bequeathed  wholly  to 
Raleana,  and  his  thoughts  live  only  in  that  action,"  he  rises  into 
something  like  grandeur  when  he  begins  to  speak  of  that  ever- 
fertile  subject,  the  Spanish  cruelties  to  the  Indians  :  "  Doth  not 
the  cry  of  the  poor  succourless  ascend  unto  the  heavens  ?  Hath 
God  forgotten  to  be  gracious  to  the  work  of  his  own  hands  ?  Or 
shall  not  his  judgments  in  a  day  of  visitation  by  the  ministry  of 
his  chosen  servant  come  upon  these  bloodthirsty  butchers,  like 
rain  into  a  fleece  of  wool  ?  "  Poor  Keymis  !  To  us  he  is  by 
no  means  the  least  beautiful  figure  in  this  romance  ;  a  faithful, 
diligent,  loving  man,  unable,  as  the  event  proved,  to  do  great 
deeds  by  himself,  but  inspired  with  a  great  idea  by  contact  with 
a  mightier  spirit,  to  whom  he  clings  through  evil  report  and 
poverty  and  prison  and  the  scaffold,  careless  of  self  to  the  last, 
and  ends  tragically,  "faithful  unto  death"  in  the  most  awful 
sense. 

^But  here  remark  two  things  :  first,  that  Cecil  believes  in  Ra 
leigh's  Guiana  scheme  ;  next,  that  the  occupation  of  Orinoco  by 
the  Spaniards,  which  Raleigh  is  accused  of  having  concealed 
from  James  in  1617,  has  been,  ever  since  1595,  matter  of  the 
most  public  notoriety. 


SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  35 

Raleigh  has  not  been  idle  in  the  meanwhile.  It  has  been  found 
necessary  after  all  to  take  the  counsel  which  he  gave  in  vain  in 
1588,  to  burn  the  Spanish  fleet  in  harbour  ;  and  the  heroes  are 
gone  down  to  Cadiz  fight,  and  in  one  day  of  thunder-storm  the 
Sevastopol  of  Spain.  Here,  as  usual,  we  find  Raleigh,  though 
in  an  inferior  command,  leading  the  whole  by  virtue  of  superior 
wisdom.  When  the  good  Lord  Admiral  wrill  needs  be  cautious, 
and  land  the  soldiers  first,  it  is  Raleigh  who  persuades  him  to 
force  his  way  into  the  harbour,  to  the  joy  of  all  captains.  When 
hot-head  Essex,  casting  his  hat  into  the  sea  for  joy,  shouts  Intra- 
mos,  and  will  in  at  once,  Raleigh's  time  for  caution  comes,  and 
he  persuades  them  to  wait  till  the  next  morning,  and  arrange  the 
order  of  attack.  That,  too,  Raleigh  has  to  do,  and  moreover  to 
lead  it ;  and  lead  it  he  does.  Under  the  forts  are  seventeen 
galleys  ;  the  channel  is  "  scoured "  with  cannon :  but  on  holds 
Raleigh's  Warspite,  far  ahead  of  the  rest,  through  the  thickest 
of  the  fire,  answering  forts  and  galleys  "  with  a  blow  of  the 
trumpet  to  each  piece,  disdaining  to  shoot  at  those  esteemed 
dreadful  monsters."  For  there  is  a  nobler  enemy  ahead.  Right 
in  front  lie  the  galleons ;  and  among  them  the  Philip  and  the 
Andrew,  two  who  boarded  the  Revenge.  This  day  there  shall 
be  a  reckoning  for  the  blood  of  his  old  friend ;  he  is  "  resolved 
to  be  revenged  for  the  Revenge,  Sir  Richard  Grenvile's  fatal 
ship,  or  second  her  with  his  own  life  ;  "  and  well  he  keeps  his 
vow.  Three  hours  pass  of  desperate  valour,  during  which,  so 
narrow  is  the  passage,  only  seven  English  ships,  thrusting  past 
each  other,  all  but  quarrelling  in  their  noble  rivalry,  engage  the 
whole  Spanish  fleet  of  fifty-seven  sail,  and  destroy  it  utterly. 
The  Philip  and  Thomas  burn  themselves  despairing.  The  Eng 
lish  boats  save  the  Andrew  and  Matthew.  One  passes  over  the 
hideous  record.  "  If  any  man,"  says  Raleigh,  "  had  a  desire  to 
see  hell  itself,  it  was  there  most  lively  figured."  Keymis's  prayer 
is  answered  in  part,  even  while  he  writes  it ;  and  the  cry  of  the 
Indians  has  not  ascended  in  vain  before  the  throne  of  God  ! 

The  soldiers  are  landed  ;  the  city  stormed  and  sacked,  not 
without  mercies  and  courtesies,  though,  to  women  and  unarmed 
folk,  which  win  the  hearts  of  the  vanquished,  and  live  till  this 
day  in  well-known  ballads.  The  Flemings  begin  a  "  merciless 
slaughter."  Raleigh  and  the  Lord  Admiral  beat  them  off.  Ra 
leigh  is  carried  on  shore  for  an  hour  with  a  splinter  wound  in 
the  leg,  which  lames  him  for  life :  but  returns  on  board  in  an 
hour  in  agony ;  for  there  is  no  admiral  left  to  order  the  fleet, 
and  all  are  run  headlong  to  the  sack.  In  vain  he  attempts  to 
get  together  sailors  the  following  morning,  and  attack  the  Indian 
fleet  in  Porto  Real  Roads ;  within  twenty-four  hours  it  is  burnt 


36  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

by  the  Spaniards  themselves ;  and  all  Raleigh  wins  is  no  booty, 
a  lame  leg,  and  the  honour  of  having  been  the  real  author  of  a 
victory  even  more  glorious  than  that  of  1588. 

So  he  returns,  having  written  to  Cecil  the  highest  praises  of 
Essex,  whom  he  treats  with  all  courtesy  and  fairness  ;  which 
those  who  will  may  call  cunning :  we  have  as  good  a  right  to 
say  that  he  was  returning  good  for  evil.  There  were  noble 
Dualities  in  Essex.  All  the  world  gave  him  credit  for  them,  and 
far  more  than  he  deserved ;  why  should  not  Raleigh  have  been 
just  to  him,  even  have  conceived,  like  the  rest  of  the  world,  high 
hopes  of  him,  till  he  himself  destroyed  these  hopes  ?  For  now 
storms  are  rising  fast.  On  their  return  Cecil  is  in  power.  He 
has  been  made  Secretary  of  State  instead  of  Bodley,  Essex's 
pet,  and  the  spoilt  child  begins  to  sulk.  On  which  matter,  we 
are  sorry  to  say,  Mr.  Tytler  and  others  talk  much  unwisdom, 
about  Essex's  being  too  "  open  and  generous,  &c.  for  a  courtier," 
and  "  presuming  on  his  mistress'  passion  for  him  ;  "  and  represent 
Elizabeth  as  desiring  to  be  thought  beautiful,  and  "  affecting  at 
sixty,  the  sighs,  loves,  tears,  and  tastes,  of  a  girl  of  sixteen," — 
and  so  forth.  It  is  really  time  to  get  rid  of  some  of  this  fulsome 
talk,  culled  from  such  triflers  as  Osborne,  if  not  from  the  darker 
and  fouler  sources  of  Parsons  and  the  Jesuit  slanderers,  which 
we  meet  with  a  flat  denial.  There  is  simply  no  proof.  She  in 
love  with  Essex  or  Cecil  ?  Yes,  as  a  mother  with  a  son.  Were 
they  not  the  children  of  her  dearest  and  most  faithful  servants, 
men  who  had  lived  heroic  lives  for  her  sake  ?  What  wonder  if 
she  fancied  that  she  saw  the  fathers  in  the  sons  ?  They  had 
been  trained  under  her  eye.  What  wonder  if  she  fancied  that 
they  could  work  as  their  fathers  worked  before  them  ?  And 
what  shame  if  her  childless  heart  yearned  over  them  with  un 
speakable  affection,  and  longed  in  her  old  age  to  lay  her  hands 
upon  the  shoulders  of  those  two  young  men,  and  say  to  Eng 
land,  "  Behold  the  children  which  God,  and  not  the  flesh,  has 
given  me  ?  "  Most  strange  it  is,  too,  that  women,  who  ought  at 
least  to  know  a  woman's  heart,  have  been  especially  forward  in 
publishing  these  stupid  scandals,  and  sullying  their  pages  by  re 
tailing  prurient  slander  against  such  a  one  as  Queen  Elizabeth. 

But  to  return.  Raleigh  attaches  himself  to  Cecil ;  and  he 
has  good  reason.  Cecil  is  the  cleverest  man  in  England,  saving 
himself.  He  has  trusted  and  helped  him,  too,  in  two  Guiana 
voyages  ;  so  the  connection  is  one  of  gratitude  as  well  as  pru 
dence.  We  know  not  whether  he  helped  him  in  the  third  Guiana 
voyage  in  the  same  year,  under  Captain  Berry,  (a  north  Devon 
man,  from  Grenvile's  country,)  who  found  a  mighty  folk,  who 
were  "  something  pleasant,  having  drunk  much  that  day,"  and 


SIR   WALTER  RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  37 

carried  bows  with  golden  handles  ;  but  failed  in  finding  the  Lake 
Parima,  and  so  came  home. 

Raleigh's  first  use  of  his  friendship  with  Cecil,  is  to  reconcile 
him,  to  the  astonishment  of  the  world,  with  Essex,  alleging  how 
much  good  may  grow  by  it ;  for  now,  "  the  Queen's  continual 
unquietness  will  grow  to  contentment."  That,  too,  those  who 
will  may  call  policy.  We  have  as  good  a  right  to  call  it  the  act 
of  a  wise  and  faithful  subject,  and  to  say,  "  Blessed  are  the  peace 
makers,  for  they  shall  be  called  the  children  of  God."  He  has 
his  reward  for  it,  in  full  restoration  to  the  Queen's  favour  ;  he 
deserves  it.  He  proves  himself  once  more  worthy  of  power, 
and  it  is  given  to  him.  Then  there  is  to  be  a  second  great  ex 
pedition  ;  but  this  time  its  aim  is  the  Azores.  Philip,  only  mad 
dened  by  the  loss  at  Cadiz,  is  preparing  a  third  armament  for 
the  invasion  of  England  and  Ireland,  and  it  is  said  to  lie  at  the 
islands  to  protect  the  Indian  fleet.  Raleigh  has  the  victualling 
of  the  land-forces,  and  like  every  thing  else  he  takes  in  hand, 
"  it  is  very  well  done."  Lord  Howard  declines  the  chief  com 
mand,  and  it  is  given  to  Essex.  Raleigh  is  to  be  rear-admiral. 

By  the  time  they  reach  the  Azores,  Essex  has  got  up  a  foolish 
quarrel  against  Raleigh  for  disrespect  in  having  staid  behind  to 
bring  up  some  stragglers.  But  when  no  armada  is  to  be  found 
at  the  Azores,  Essex  has  after  all  to  ask  Raleigh  what  he  shall 
do  next.  Conquer  the  Azores,  says  Raleigh,  and  the  thing  is 
agreed  on.  Raleigh  and  Essex  are  to  attack  Fayal.  Essex 
sails  away  before  Raleigh  has  watered.  Raleigh  follows  as  fast 
as  he  can,  and  at  Fayal  finds  no  Essex.  He  must  water  there, 
then  and  at  once.  His  own  veterans  want  him  to  attack  forth 
with,  for  the  Spaniards  are  fortifying  fast ;  but  he  will  wait  for 
Essex.  Still  no  Essex  comes.  Raleigh  attempts  to  water,  is 
defied,  finds  himself  "in  for  it,"  and  takes  the  island  out  of 
hand  in  the  most  masterly  fashion,  to  the  infuriation  of  Essex. 
Good  Lord  Howard  patches  up  the  matter,  and  the  hot-headed 
coxcomb  is  once  more  pacified.  They  go  on  to  Graciosa,  where 
Essex's  weakness  of  will  again  comes  out,  and  he  does  not  take 
the  island.  Three  rich  caracks,  however,  are  picked  up. 
"  Though  we  shall  be  little  the  better  for  them,"  says  Raleigh 
privately  to  Sir  Arthur  Gorges,  his  faithful  captain,  "  yet  I  am 
heartily  glad  for  our  General's  sake  ;  because  they  will  in  great 
measure  give  content  to  her  Majesty,  so  that  there  may  be  no  re 
pining  against  this  poor  Lord  for  the  expense  of  the  voyage." 

Raleigh  begins  to  see  that  Essex  is  only  to  be  pitied  that  the 
voyage  is  not  over  likely  to  end  well ;  but  he  takes  it,  in  spite  of 
ill-usage,  as  a  kind-hearted  man  should.  Again  Essex  makes  a 
fool  of  himself.  They  are  to  steer  one  way  in  order  to  interrupt 


38  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

the  Plate-fleet.  Essex  having  agreed  to  the  course  pointed  out, 
alters  his  course  on  a  fancy  ;  then  alters  it  a  second  time,  though 
the  hapless  Monson,  with  the  whole  Plate-fleet  in  sight,  is  hang-, 
ing  out  lights,  firing  guns,  and  shrieking  vainly  for  the  General, 
who  is  gone  on  a  new  course,  in  which  he  might  have  caught  the 
fleet  after  all,  in  spite  of  his  two  mistakes,  but  that  he  chooses  to 
go  a  round-about  way  instead  of  a  short  one  ;  and  away  goes 
the  whole  fleet  safe,  save  one  carack,  which  runs  itself  on  shore 
and  burns,  and  the  game  is  played  out,  and  lost. 

All  want  Essex  to  go  home  as  the  season  is  getting  late  :  but 
the  wilful  and  weak  man  will  linger  still,  and  while  he  is  hover 
ing  to  the  south,  Philip's  armament  has  sailed  from  the  Groyne, 
on  the  undefended  shores  of  England,  and  only  God's  hand  saves 
us  from  the  effects  of  Essex's  folly.  A  third  time  the  armadas 
of  Spain  are  overwhelmed  by  the  avenging  tempests,  and  Essex 
returns  to  disgrace,  having  proved  himself  at  once  intemperate 
and  incapable.  Even  in  coming  home  there  is  confusion,  and 
Essex  is  all  but  lost  on  the  Bishop  and  Clerks,  by  Scilly,  in  spite 
of  the  warnings  of  Raleigh's  sailing-master  "  Old  Broadbent," 
•who  is  so  exasperated  at  the  general  stupidity  that  he  wants 
Raleigh  to  leave  Essex  and  his  squadron  to  get  out  of  their  own 
scrape  as  they  can. 

Essex  goes  off  to  salt  at  Wanstead ;  but  Vere  excuses  him, 
and  in  a  few  days  he  comes  back,  and  will  needs  fight  good  Lord 
Howard  for  being  made  Earl  of  Nottingham  for  his  services 
against  the  Armada,  and  at  Cadiz.  Balked  of  this,  he  begins 
laying  the  blame  of  the  failure  at  the  Azores  on  Raleigh.  Let 
the  spoilt  naughty  boy  take  care  ;  even  that  "  admirable  temper  " 
for  which  Raleigh  is  famed,  may  be  worn  out  at  last. 

These  years  are  Raleigh's  noon — stormy  enough  at  best,  yet 
brilliant.  There  is  a  pomp  about  him,  outward  and  inward,  which 
is  terrible  to  others,  dangerous  to  himself.  One  has  gorgeous 
glimpses  of  that  grand  Durham  House  of  his,  with  its  carvings 
and  its  antique  marbles,  armorial  escutcheons,  "  beds  with  green 
silk  hangings  and  legs  like  dolphins,  overlaid  with  gold  ;  "  and  the 
man  himself,  tall,  beautiful,  and  graceful,  perfect  alike  in  body 
and  in  mind,  walking  to  and  fro,  his  beautiful  wife  upon  his  arm, 
his  noble  boy  beside  his  knee,  in  his  "  white  satin  doublet  em 
broidered  with  pearls,  and  a  great  chain  of  pearls  about  his  neck," 
lording  it  among  the  lords  with  "  an  aAvfulness  and  ascendency 
above  other  mortals,"  for  which  men  say  that  "  his  na3ve  is,  that 
he  is  damnable  proud  ; "  and  no  wonder.  The  reduced  squire's 
younger  son  has  gone  forth  to  conquer  the  world  ;  and  he  fancies, 
poor  fool,  that  he  has  conquered  it,  just  as  it  really  has  conquered 
him ;  and  he  will  stand  now  on  his  blood  and  his  pedigree,  (no 


SIR   WALTER   RALEIGH  AND   HIS  TIME.  39 

bad  one  either,)  and  all  the  more  stiffly  because  puppies  like  Lord 
Oxford,  Avho  instead  of  making  their  fortunes  have  squandered 
them,  call  him  "jack  and  upstart,"  and  make  impertinent  faces 
while  the 'queen  is  playing  the  virginals,  about  "how  when  jacks 
go  up,  heads  go  down."  Proud  ?  No  wonder  if  the  man  be 
proud.  "  Is  not  this  great  Babylon,  which  I  have  built  ?  "  And 
yet  all  the  while  he  has  the  most  affecting  consciousness  that  all 
this  is  not  God's  will,  but  the  will  of  the  flesh ;  that  the  house  of 
fame  is  not  the  house  of  God  ;  that  its  floor  is  not  the  rock  of 
ages,  but  the  sea  of  glass  mingled  with  fire,  which  may  crack  be 
neath  him  any  moment,  and  let  the  nether  flame  burst  up.  He 
knows  that  he  is  living  in  a  splendid  lie ;  that  he  is  not  what  God 
meant  him  to  be.  He  longs  to  flee  away  and  be  at  peace.  It  is 
to  this  period,  not  to  his  death-hour,  that  "  The  Lie  "  belongs  ;  * 
saddest  of  poems,  with  its  melodious  contempt  and  life-weariness. 
All  is  a  lie — court,  church,  statesmen,  courtiers,  wit  and  science, 
town  and  country,  all  are  shams  ;  the  days  are  evil ;  the  canker 
is  at  the  root  of  all  things  ;  the  old  heroes  are  dying  one  by  one  ; 
the  Elizabethan  age  is  rotting  down,  as  all  human  things  do,  and 
nothing  is  left  but  to  bewail  with  Spenser  "  The  Ruins  of  Time ; " 
the"  glory  and  virtue  which  have  been — the  greater  glory  and  vir 
tue  which  might  be  even  now,  if  men  would  but  arise  and  repent, 
and  work  righteousness,  as  their  fathers  did  before  them.  But 
no.  Even  to  such  a  world  as  this  he  will  cling,  and  flaunt  it 
about  as  captain  of  the  guard  in  the  Queen's  progresses  and 
masques  and  pageants,  with  sword-belt  studded  with  diamonds 
and  rubies,  or  at  tournaments,  in  armour  of  solid  silver,  and  a 
gallant  train  with  orange-tawny  feathers,  provoking  puppy  Essex 
to  bring  in  a  far  larger  train  in  the  same  colours,  and  swallow  up 
Raleigh's  pomp  in  his  own,  so  achieving  that  famous  "  feather- 
triumph  "  by  which  he  gains  little  but  bad  blood  and  a  good  jest. 
For  Essex  is  no  better  tilter  than  he  is  general ;  and  having  "  run 
very  ill  "  in  his  orange-tawny,  comes  next  day  in  green,  and  runs 
still  worse,  and  yet  is  seen  to  be  the  same  cavalier ;  whereon  a 
spectator  shrewdly  observes,  that  he  changed  his  colours  "  that  it 
may  be  reported  that  there  was  one  in  green  who  ran  worse  than 
he  in  orange-tawny."  But  enough  of  these  toys,  while  God's 
handwriting  is  upon  the  wall  above  all  heads. 

Raleigh  knows  that  the  handwriting  is  there.  The  spirit 
which  drove  him  forth  to  Virginia  and  Guiana  is  fallen  asleep  : 
but  he  longs  for  Sherborne  and  quiet  country  life,  and  escapes 
thither  during  Essex's  imprisonment,  taking  Cecil's  son  with  him, 
and  writes  as  only  he  can  write,  about  the  shepherd's  peaceful 

*  It  is  to  be  found  in  a  MS.  of  1596. 


40  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

joys,    contrasted  with    "  courts "    and  "  masques  "   and  "  proud 
towers." — 

"  Here  are  no  false  entrapping  baits 
Too  hasty  for  too  hasty  fates, 
Unless  it  be 
The  fond  credulity 

Of  silly  fish,  that  worldling  who  still  look 
Upon  the  bait,  but  never  on  the  hook; 

Kor  envy,  unless  among 
The  birds,  for  prize  of  their  sweet  song. 

"  Go !  let  the  diving  negro  seek 
For  pearls  hid  in  some  forlorn  creek, 
We  all  pearls  scorn, 
Save  what  the  dewy  morn 
Congeals  upon  some  little  spire  of  grass, 
Which  careless  shepherds  beat  down  as  they  pass; 

And  gold  ne'er  here  appears 
Save  what  the  yellow  Ceres  bears." 

Tragic  enougli  are  the  after  scenes  of  Raleigh's  life;  but  most 
tragic  of  all  are  these  scenes  of  vainglory,  in  which  he  sees  the 
better  part,  and  yet  chooses  the  worse,  and  pours  out  his  self- 
discontent  in  song  which  proves  the  fount  of  delicacy  and  beauty 
which  lies  pure  and  bright  beneath  the  gaudy  artificial  cnist. 
What  might  not  this  man  have  been  !  And  he  knows  that  too. 
The  stately  rooms  of  Durham  House  pall  on  him,  and  he  delights 
to  hide  up  in  his  little  study  among  his  books  and  his  chemical 
experiments,  and  smoke  his  silver  pipe,  and  look  out  on  the 
clear  Thames  and  the  green  Surrey  hills,  and  dream  about 
Guiana  and  the  Tropics  ;  or  to  sit  in  the  society  of  antiquaries 
with  Selden  and  Cotton,  Camden  and  Stow ;  or  in  his  own 
Mermaid  club,  with  Ben  Jonson,  Fletcher,  Beaumont,  and  at 
last  with  Shakspeare's  self,  to  hear  and  utter 

r 

"  Words  that  have  been 
So  nimble,  and  so  full  of  subtle  flame, 
As  if  that  every  one  from  whom  they  came 
Had  meant  to  put  his  whole  wit  in  a  jest."  * 

Any  thing  to  forget  the  handwriting  on  the  wall,  which  will  not 
be  forgotten. 

But  he  will  do  all  the  good  which  he  can  meanwhile,  neverthe 
less.  He  will  serve  God  and  Mammon.  So  complete  a  man  will 
surely  be  able  to  do  both.  Unfortunately  the  thing  is  impossible, 
as  he  discovers  too  late ;  but  he  certainly  goes  as  near  success  in 
the  attempt  as  ever  man  did.  Everywhere  we  find  him  doing 
justly,  and  loving  mercy.  Wherever  this  man  steps  he  leaves 
his  footprint  ineffaceably  in  deeds  of  benevolence.  For  one  year 

*  Beaumont  on  the  Mermaid  Club;  Letter  to  B,  Jonson. 


SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH  AND  HIS  TIME.  41 

only,  it  seems,  he  is  governor  of  Jersey :  yet  to  this  day,  it  is  said, 
the  islanders  honour  his  name,  only  second  to  that  of  Duke  Rollo, 
as  their  great  benefactor,  the  founder  of  their  Newfoundland  trade. 
In  the  west  country  he  is  "  as  a  king,"  "  with  ears  and  mouth 
always  open  to  hear  and  deliver  their  grievances,  feet  and  hands 
ready  to  go  and  work  their  redress."  The  tin  merchants  have 
become  usurers  "  of  fifty  in  the  hundred."  Raleigh  works  till  he 
has  put  down  their  "  abominable  and  cut-throat  dealing."  There 
is  a  burdensome  west-country  tax  on  curing  fish ;  Raleigh  works 
till  it  is  revoked.  In  parliament  he  is  busy  with  liberal  measures, 
always  before  his  generation.  He  puts  down  a  foolish  act  for 
compulsory  sowing  of  hemp,  in  a  speech  on  the  freedom  of 
labour,  worthy  of  the  nineteenth  century.  He  argues  against 
raising  the  subsidy  from  the  three  pound  men — "  Call  you  this, 
Mr.  Francis  Bacon,  par  jugum  when  a  poor  man  pays  as  much 
as  a  rich  ?  "  He  is  equally  rational  and  spirited  against  the  ex 
portation  of  ordnance  to  the  enemy  ;  and  when  the  question  of 
abolishing  monopolies  is  mooted  he  has  his  wise  word.  He  too 
is  a  monopolist  of  tin,  as  Lord  Warden  of  the  Stannaries.  But 
he  has  so  wrought  as  to  bring  good  out  of  evil ;  for  before  the 
granting  of  his  patent,  let  the  price  of  tin  be  never  so  high,  the 
poor  workman  never  had  but  two  shillings  a  week ;  yet  now,  so  has 
he  extended  and  organized  the  tin-works,  that  any  man  who  will 
can  find  work,  and,  be  tin  at  what  price  soever,  have  four  shillings 

a  week  truly  paid "  Yet  if  all  others  may  be  repealed, 

I  will  give  my  consent  as  freely  to  the  cancelling  of  this,  as  any 
member  of  this  house."  Most  of  the  monopolies  were  repealed : 
but  we  do  not  find  that  Raleigh's  was  among  them.  Why  should 
it  be  if  its  issue  was  more  tin,  and  full  work,  and  double  wages  ? 
In  all  things  this  man  approves  himself  faithful  in  his  generation. 
His  sins  are  not  against  man,  but  against  God  ;  such  as  the 
world  thinks  no  sins  ;  and  hates  them,  not  from  morality,  but 
from  envy. 

In  the  meanwhile,  the  evil  which,  so  Spenser  had  prophesied, 
only  waited  Raleigh's  death,  breaks  out  in  his  absence,  and 
Ireland  is  all  aflame  with  Tyrone's  rebellion.  Raleigh  is  sent 
for.  He  will  not  accept  the  post  of  Lord  Deputy,  and  go  to  put 
it  dowrn.  Perhaps  he  does  not  expect  fair  play  as  long  as  Essex 
is  at  home.  Perhaps  he  knows  too  much  of  the  common  weal, 
or  rather  common  woe,  and  thinks  that  what  is  crooked  cannot 
be  made  straight.  Perhaps  he  is  afraid  to  lose  by  absence  his 
ground  at  court.  Would  that  he  had  gone,  for  Ireland's  sake 
and  his  own.  However,  it  must  not  be.  Ormond  is  recalled  and 
Knolles  shall  be  sent ;  but  Essex  will  have  none  but  Sir  George 
Carew  ;  whom,  Naunton  says,  he  hates,  and  wishes  to  oust  from 


42  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

court.  He  and  Elizabeth  argue  it  out.  He  turns  his  back  on 
her,  and  she  gives  him  (or  does  not  give  him,  for  one  has  found 
so  many  of  these  racy  anecdotes  vanish  on  inspection  into  simple 
wind,  that  one  believes  none  of  them)  a  box  on  the  ear  ;  which 
if  she  did,  she  did  the  most  wise,  just,  and  practical  thing  which 
she  could  do  with  such  a  puppy.  He  clasps  his  hand  (or  does 
not)  to  his  sword — "  He  would  not  have  taken  it  from  Henry 
the  VIII.,"  and  is  turned  out  forthwith.  In  vain  Egerton,  the 
lord  keeper,  tries  to  bring  him  to  reason.  He  storms  insanely. 
Every  one  on  earth  is  wrong  but  he  ;  every  one  is  conspiring 
against  him  ;  he  talks  of  "  Solomon's  fool  "  too.  Had  he  read 
the  Proverbs  a  little  more  closely,  he  might  have  left  the  said 
fool  alone,  as  being  a  too  painfully  exact  likeness  of  himself.  It 
ends  by  his  being  worsted,  and  Raleigh  rising  higher  than  ever. 
We  never  could  see  why  Raleigh  should  be  represented  as  hence 
forth  becoming  Essex's  "  avowed  enemy,"  save  on  the  ground 
that  all  good  men  are  and  ought  to  be  the  enemies  of  bad  men, 
when  they  see  them  about  to  do  harm,  and  to  ruin  the  country. 
Essex  is  one  of  the  many  persons  upon  whom  this  age  has  lav 
ished  a  quantity  of  maudlin  sentimentality,  which  suits  oddly 
enough  with  its  professions  of  impartiality.  But  there  is  an  im 
partiality  which  ends  in  utter  injustice,  which,  by  saying  care 
lessly  to  every  quarrel,  "  Both  are  right,  and  both  are  wrong," 
leaves  only  the  impression  that  all  men  are  wrong,  and  ends  by 
being  unjust  to  every  one.  So  has  Elizabeth  and  Essex's  quarrel 
been  treated.  There  was  some  evil  in  Essex  ;  therefore  Eliza 
beth  was  a  fool  for  liking  him.  There  was  some  good  in  Essex  ; 
therefore  Elizabeth  was  cruel  in  punishing  him.  This  is  the 
sort  of  slipshod  dilemma  by  which  Elizabeth  is  proved  to  be 
wrong,  even  while  Essex  is  confessed  to  be  wrong  too ;  while  the 
patent  facts  of  the  case  are,  that  Elizabeth  bore  with  him  as  long 
as  she  could,  and  a  great  deal  longer  than  any  one  else  could. 
Why  Raleigh  should  be  accused  of  helping  to  send  Essex  into 
Ireland,  we  do  not  know.  Camden  confesses  (at  the  same  time 
that  he  gives  a  hint  of  the  kind)  that  Essex  would  let  no  one  go 
but  himself.  And  if  this  was  his  humour,  one  can  hardly  wonder 
at  Cecil  and  Raleigh,  as  well  as  Elizabeth,  bidding  the  man 
begone  and  try  his  hand  at  government,  and  be  filled  with  the 
fruit  of  his  own  devices.  He  goes  ;  does  nothing ;  or  rather 
worse  than  nothing ;  for  in  addition  to  the  notorious  ill-manage 
ment  of  the  whole  matter,  we  may  fairly  say  that  he  killed 
Elizabeth.  She  never  held  up  her  head  again  after  Tyrone's 
rebellion.  Elizabeth  still  clings  to  him,  changing  her  mind  about 
him  every  hour,  and  at  last  writes  him  such  a  letter  as  he  de 
serves.  He  has  had  power,  money,  men,  such  as  no  one  ever 


SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH  AND  HIS  TIME.  43 

had  before,  why  has  he  done  nothing  but  bring  England  to 
shame?  He  comes  home  frantically  (the  story  of  his  bursting 
into  the  dressing-room  rests  on  no  good  authority)  with  a  party 
of  friends  at  his  heels,  leaving  Ireland  to  take  care  of  itself. 
"Whatever  entertainment  he  met  with  from  the  fond  old  woman, 
he  met  with  the  coldness  which  he  deserved  from  Raleigh  and 
Cecil.  Who  can  wonder?  What  had  he  done  to  deserve 
aught  else  ?  But  he  all  but  conquers  ;  and  Raleigh  takes  to  his 
bed  in  consequence,  sick  of  the  whole  matter ;  as  one  would  have 
been  inclined  to  do  one's  self.  He  is  examined  and  arraigned  ; 
writes  a  maudlin  letter  to  Elizabeth,  of  which  Mr.  Tytler  says, 
that  it  "  says  little  for  the  heart  which  could  resist  it ; "  another 
instance  of  the  strange  self-contradictions  into  which  his  brains 
will  run.  In  one  page,  forsooth,  Elizabeth  is  a  fool  for  listening 
to  these  pathetical  "  love  letters  ; "  in  the  next  page  she  is  hard 
hearted  for  not  listening  to  them.  Poor  thing  !  Do  what  she 
would  she  found  it  hard  enough  to  please  all  parties  wThile  alive  ; 
must  she  be  condemned  over  and  above  in  celernum  to  be  wrong 
whatsoever  she  does  ?  Why  is  she  not  to  have  the  benefit  of  the 
plain,  straightforward  interpretation  which  would  be  allowed  to 
any  other  human  being,  namely,  that  she  approved  of  such  fine 
talk,  as  long  as  it  was  proved  to  be  sincere  by  fine  deeds  ;  but 
that  when  these  were  wanting,  the  fine  talk  became  hollow,  ful 
some,  a  fresh  cause  of  anger  and  disgust  ?  Yet  still  she  weeps 
over  him  when  he  falls  sick,  as  any  mother  would ;  and  would 
visit  him  if  she  could  with  honour.  But  a  "  malignant  influence 
counteracts  every  disposition  to  relent."  No  doubt,  a  man's  own 
folly,  passion,  and  insolence,  .has  generally  a  very  malignant  in 
fluence  on  his  fortunes,  and  he  may  consider  himself  a  very  happy 
man  if  all  that  befalls  to  him  thereby  is  what  befell  Essex,  dep 
rivation  of  his  offices,  and  imprisonment  in  his  own  house.  He 
is  forgiven  after  all ;  but  the  spoilt  child  refuses  his  bread  and 
butter  without  sugar.  What  is  the  pardon  to  him  without  a  re 
newal  of  his  license  of  sweet  wines  ?  Because  he  is  not  to  have 
that,  the  Queen's  "  conditions  are  as  crooked  as  her  carcase." 
Elesh  and  blood  can  stand  no  more,  and  ought  to  stand  no  more. 
After  all  that  Elizabeth  has  been  to  him,  that  speech  is  the 
speech  of  a  brutal  and  ungrateful  nature.  And  such  he  shows 
himself  to  be  in  the  hour  of  trial.  What  if  the  patent  for  sweet 
.wines  is  refused  him  ?  Such  gifts  were  meant  as  the  reward  of 
merit ;  and  what  merit  has  he  to  show  ?  He  never  thinks  of 
that.  Blind  with  fury  he  begins  to  intrigue  with  Jam:;s,  and 
slanders  to  him,  under  colour  of  helping  his  succession,  all  whom 
he  fancies  opposed  to  him.  What  is  worse,  he  intrigues  with 
Tyrone  about  bringing  over  an  army  of  Irish  Papists  to  help 


44  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

him  against  the  Queen,  and  this  at  the  very  time  that  his  sole 
claim  to  popularity  rests  on  his  being  the  leader  of  the  Puritans. 
A  rnan  must  have  been  very  far  gone,  either  in  baseness,  or  blind 
fury,  who  represents  Raleigh  to  James  as  dangerous  to  the  com 
monweal,  on  account  of  his  great  power  in  the  west  of  England 
and  Jersey,  "  places  fit  for  the  Spaniard  to  land  in."  Cobham, 
as  warden  of  the  Cinque  ports,  is  included  in  his  slander ;  and 
both  he  and  Raleigh  will  hear  of  it  again. 

Some  make  much  of  a  letter,  supposed  to  be  written  about  this 
time  by  Raleigh  to  Cecil,  bidding  Cecil  keep  down  Essex,  even 
crush  him,  now  that  he  is  once  down.  We  do  not  happen  to 
think  the  letter  to  be  Raleigh's.  His  initals  are  subscribed  to  it ; 
but  not  his  name  ;  and  the  style  is  hot  like  his.  But  as  for  see 
ing  "  unforgiveness  and  revenge  in  it,"  whose  soever  it  may  be, 
we  hold  and  say  there  is  not  a  word  which  can  bear  such  a  con 
struction.  It  is  a  dark  letter  :  but  about,  a  dark  matter,  and  a 
dark  man.  It  is  a  worldly  and  expediential  letter,  appealing  to 
low  motives  in  Cecil,  though  for  a  right  end ;  such  a  letter,  in 
short,  as  statesmen  are  wont  to  write  now-a-days.  If  Raleigh 
wrote  it,  God  punished  him  for  doing  so  speedily  enough.  He 
does  not  punish  statesmen  now-a-days  for  such  letters  ;  perhaps 
because  He  does  not  love  them  as  well  as  Raleigh.  But  as  for 
the  letter  itself.  Essex  is  called  a  "  tyrant,"  because  he  had 
shown  himself  one.  The  Queen  is  to  "  hold  Bothwell,"  because 
"  while  she  hath  him,  he  will  even  be  the  canker  of  her  estate 
and  safety,"  and  the  writer  has  "  seen  the  last  of  her  good  days, 
and  of  ours,  after  his  liberty."  On  which  accounts,  Cecil  is  not 
to  be  deterred  from  doing  what  is  vight  and  necessary  "by  any 
fear  of  after-revenges,"  and  "  conjectures  from  causes  remote," 
as  many  a  stronger  instance  (given)  will  prove,  but  "  look  to  the 
present,"  and  so  "  do  wisely."  There  is  no  real  cause  for  Cecil's 
fear.  If  the  man  who  has  now  lost  a  power  which  he  ought 
never  to  have  had,  be  now  kept  down,  neither  he  nor  his  son 
will  ever  be  able  to  harm  the  man  who  has  kept  him  at  his  just 
level.  What  "  revenge,  selfishness,  and  craft,"  there  can  be  in 
all  this,  it  is  difficult  to  see,  as  difficult  as  to  see  why  Essex  is  to 
be  talked  of  as  "  unfortunate,"  and  the  blame  of  his  frightful  end 
thrown  on  every  one  but  himself:  or  why  Mr.  Tytler  finds  it 
unnecessary  to  pursue  his  "well-known  story  further,"  after 
having  proved  Raleigh  to  be  all  on  a  sudden  turned  into  a  fiend : 
unless,  indeed,  it  was  inconvenient  to  bring  before  the  reader's 
mind  the  curious  and  now  forgotten  fact,  that  Essex's  end  was 
brought  on  by  his  having  chosen  one  Sunday  morning  for  break 
ing  out  into  open  rebellion,  for  the  purpose  of  seizing  the  city  of 
London  and  the  Queen's  person,  and  compelling  her  to  make 


SIR  WALTER  EALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  45 

him  lord  and  master  of  the  British  isles  ;  in  which  attempt  he 
and  his  fought  with  the  civil  and  military  authorities,  till  artillery 
had  to  be  brought  up,  and  many  lives  were  lost.  Such  little 
escapades  may  be  pardonable  enough  in  "  noble  and  unfortunate  " 
earls  :  but  our  readers  will  perhaps  agree  that  if  they  chose  to 
try  a  similar  experiment,  they  could  not  complain  if  they  found 
themselves  shortly  after  in  company  with  Mr.  Mitchell  at  Spike 
Island,  or  Mr.  Oxford  in  Bedlam.  But  those  were  days  in  which 
such  Sabbath  amusements  on  the  part  of  one  of  the  most  impor 
tant  and  powerful  personages  of  the  realm  could  not  be  passed 
over  so  lightly,  especially  when  accompanied  by  severe  loss  of 
life  ;  and  as  there  existed  in  England  certain  statutes  concerning 
rebellion  and  high  treason,  which  must  needs  have  been  framed 
for  some  purpose  or  other,  the  authorities  of  England  may  be  ex 
cused  for  fancying  that  they  bore  some  reference  to  such  acts  as 
that  which  the  noble  and  unfortunate  earl  had  just  committed,  as 
wantonly,  selfishly,  and  needlessly,  it  seems  to  us,  as  ever  did 
man  on  earth. 

We  may  seem  to  jest  too  much  upon  so  solemn  a  matter  as 
the  life  of  a  human  being :  but  if  we  are  not  to  touch  the  popu 
lar  talk  about  Essex  in  this  tone,  we  can  only  touch  it  in  a  far 
sterner  one  ;  and  if  ridicule  is  forbidden,  express  disgust  in 
stead. 

We  have  entered  into  this  matter  of  Essex  somewhat  at  length, 
because  on  it  is  founded  one  of  the  mean  slanders  from  which 
Raleigh  never  completely  recovered.  The  very  mob  who,  after 
Raleigh's  death,  made  him  a  Protestant  martyr,  (as,  indeed  he 
was,)  soon  looked  upon  Essex  in  the  same  light,  hated  Raleigh 
as  the  cause  of  his  death,  and  accused  him  of  glutting  his  eyes 
with  Essex's  misery,  puffing  tobacco  out  of  a  window,  and  what 
not, — all  mere  inventions,  as  Raleigh  declared  upon  the  scaffold. 
He  was  there  in  his  office,  as  captain  of  the  guard,  and  could  do 
no  less  than  be  there.  Essex,  it  is  said,  asked  for  Raleigh  just 
before  he  died :  but  Raleigh  had  withdrawn,  the  mob  murmur 
ing.  What  had  Essex  to  say  to  him  ?  Was  it,  asks  Oldys, 
shrewdly  enough,  to  ask  him  pardon  for  the  wicked  slanders 
which  he  had  been  pouring  into  James's  credulous  and  cowardly 
ears  ?  We  will  hope  so,  and  leave  poor  Essex  to  God  and  the 
mercy  of  God,  asserting  once  more,  that  no  man  ever  brought 
ruin  and  death  more  thoroughly  on  himself  by  his  own  act,  need 
ing  no  imaginary  help  downwards  from  Raleigh,  Cecil,  or  other 
human  being. 

And  now  begins  the  fourth  act  of  this  strange  tragedy.  Queen 
Elizabeth  dies ;  and  dies  of  grief.  It  has  been  the  fashion  to 
attribute  to  her,  we  know  not  what,  remorse  for  Essex's  death  ; 


46  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

and  the  foolish  and  false  tale  about  Lady  Nottingham  and  the 
ring  has  been  accepted  as  history.  The  fact  seems  to  be  that 
she  never  really  held  up  her  head  after  Burleigh's  death.  She 
could  not  speak  of  him  without  tears ;  forbade  his  name  to  be 
mentioned  in  the  Council.  No  wonder  ;  never  had  mistress  a 
better  servant.  For  nearly  half  a  century  have  these  two  noble 
souls  loved  each  other,  trusted  each  other,  worked  with  each 
other ;  and  God's  blessing  has  been  on  their  deeds ;  and  now  the 
faithful  God-fearing  man  is  gone  to  his  reward  ;  and  she  is  grow 
ing  old,  and  knows  that  the  ancient  fire  is  dying  out  in  her  ;  and 
who  will  be  to  her  what  he  was  ?  Buckhurst  is  a  good  man,  and 
one  of  her  old  pupils ;  and  she  makes  him  Lord  Treasurer  in 
Raleigh's  place :  but  beyond  that,  all  is  dark.  "•  I  am  a  miser 
able  forlorn  woman,  there  is  none  about  me  that  I  can  trust !  " 
She  sees  through  false  Cecil ;  through  false  Henry  Howard. 
Essex  has  proved  himself  worthless,  and  pays  the  penalty  of  his 
sins.  Men  are  growing  worse  than  their  fathers.  Spanish  gold 
is  bringing  in  luxury  and  sin.  The  ten  last  years  of  her  reign 
are  years  of  decadence,  profligacy,  falsehood  ;  and  she  cannot 
but  see  it.  Tyrone's  rebellion  is  the  last  drop  which  fills  the 
cup.  After  fifty  years  of  war,  after  a  drain  of  money  all  but 
fabulous,  expended  on  keeping  Ireland  quiet,  the  volcano  bursts 
forth  again  just  as  it  seemed  extinguished,  more  fiercely  than 
ever,  and  the  whole  work  has  to  be  done  over  again,  when  there 
is  neither  time,  nor  a  man  to  do  it.  And  ahead,  what  hope  is 
there  for  England  ?  Who  will  be  her  successor  ?  She  knows 
in  her  heart  that  it  will  be  James  :  but  she  cannot  bring  herself 
to  name  him.  To  bequeathe  the  fruit  of  all  her  labours  to  a 
tyrant,  a  liar,  and  a  coward !  (for  she  knows  the  man  but  too 
well.)  It  is  too  hideous  to  be  faced.  This  is  the  end,  then  ? 
"  Oh  that  I  were  a  milke  inaide,  with  a  paile  upon  mine  arm  !  " 
But  it  cannot  be.  It  never  could  have  been  ;  and  she  must  en 
dure  to  the  end. 

"  Therefore  I  hated  life  ;  yea,  I  hated  all  my  labour  which  I 
had  taken  under  the  sun  ;  because  I  should  leave  it  to  the  man 
that  shall  be  after  me.  And  who  knows  whether  he  shall  be  a 
wise  man  or  a  fool  ?  yet  shall  he  have  rule  over  all  my  labour 
wherein  I  have  showed  myself  wise,  in  wisdom,  and  knowledge, 
and  equity.  .  .  .  Vanity  of  vanities,  and  vexation  of  spirit  !  " 
And  so,  with  a  whole  book  of  Ecclesiastes  written  on  that  mighty 
heart,  the  old  liomess  coils  herself  up  in  her  lair,  refuses  food, 
and  dies.  We  know  few  passages  in  the  world's  history  so 
tragic  as  that  death. 

Why  did  she  not  trust  Raleigh  ?  First,  because  Raleigh  (as 
we  have  seen)  was  not  the  sort  of  man  whom  she  needed.  He 


SIR   WALTER   RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  47 

was  not  the  steadfast  single-eyed  man  of  business  ;  but  the  many- 
sided  genius.  Beside,  he  was  the  ringleader  of  the  war-party. 
And  she,  like  Burleigh  before  his  death,  was  tired  of  the  war; 
saw  that  it  was  demoralizing  England ;  was  anxious  for  peace. 
Raleigh  would  not  see  that.  It  was  to  him  a  divine  mission 
which  must  be  fulfilled  at  all  risks.  As  long  as  the  Spaniards 
were  opposing  the  Indians,  conquering  America,  there  must  be 
no  peace.  Both  were  right  from  their  own  point  of  view.  God 
ordered  the  matter  from  a  third  point  of  view  ;  for  His  wrath 
was  gone  out  against  this  people. 

Beside,  we  know  that  Essex,  and  after  him  Cecil  and  Henry 
Howard,  have  been  slandering  Raleigh  basely  to  James.  Can 
we  doubt  that  the  same  poison  had  been  poured  into  Elizabeth's 
ears  ?  She  might  distrust  Cecil  too  much  to  act  upon  what  he 
said  of  Raleigh  ;  and  yet  distrust  Raleigh  too  much  to  put  the 
kingdom  into  his  hands.  However,  she  is  gone  now,  arid  a  new 
king  has  arisen,  who  krioweth  not  Joseph. 

James  comes  down  to  take  possession.  Insolence,  luxury,  and 
lawlessness  mark  his  first  steps  on  his  going  amid  the  adulations 
of  a  fallen  people  ;  he  hangs  a  poor  wretch  without  trial ;  wastes 
his  time  in  hunting  by  the  way ; — a  bad  and  base  man,  whose 
only  redeeming  point  (and  it  is  a  great  one)  is  his  fondness  for 
little  children.  But  that  will  not  make  a  king.  The  wise  elders 
take  counsel  together.  Raleigh  and  good  Judge  Fortescue  are 
for  requiring  conditions  from  the  new  comer,  and  constitutional 
liberty  makes  its  last  stand  among  the  men  of  Devon,  the  old 
county  of  warriors,  discoverers,  and  statesmen,  of  which  Queen 
Bess  had  said,  that  the  men  of  Devon  were  her  right  hand.  But 
in  vain ;  James  has  his  way  ;  Cecil  and  Henry  Howard  are 
willing  enough  to  give  it  him.  Let  their  memory  be  accursed  ; 
for  never  did  two  bad  men  more  deliberately  betray  the  freedom 
of  their  country.  So  down  comes  Rehoboarn,  taking  counsel  with 
the  young  men,  and  makes  answer  to  England,  "  My  father  chas 
tised  you  with  whips ;  but  I  will  chastise  you  with  scorpions." 
He  takes  a  base  pleasure,  shocking  to  the  French  ambassador, 
in  sneering  at  the  memory  of  Queen  Elizabeth ;  a  perverse 
delight  in  honouring  every  rascal  whom  she  had  punished. 
Tyrone  must  come  to  England  to  be  received  into  favour,  mad 
dening  the  soul  of  honest  Sir  John  Harrington.  Essex  is  chris 
tened  "  my  martyr,"  apparently  for  having  plotted  treason  against 
Elizabeth  with  Tyrone.  Raleigh  is  received  with  a  pun — "  By 
my  soul,  I  have  heard  rawly  of  thee,  mon  ;  "  and  when  the  great 
nobles  and  gentlemen  come  to  Court  with  their  retinues,  James 
tries  to  hide  his  dread  of  them  in  an  insult,  pooh  poohs  their 
splendour,  and  says,  "  he  doubts  not  that  he  should  have  been 


48  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

able  to  win  England  for  himself,  had  they  kept  him  out."  Ral 
eigh  answers  boldly,  "  Would  God  that  had  been  put  to  the 
trial."  "  Why  ?  "  "  Because  then  you  would  have  known  your 
friends  from  your  foes."  "  A  reason  "  (says  old  Aubrey)  "  never 
forgotten  or  forgiven."  Aubrey  is  no  great  authority  ;  but  the 
speech  smacks  so  of  Raleigh's  offhand  daring,  that  one  cannot 
but  believe  it,  as  one  does  also  the  other  story  of  his  having 
advised  the  lords  to  keep  out  James  and  erect  a  republic.  Not 
that  he  could  have  been  silly  enough  to  propose  such  a  thing 
seriously  at  that  moment ;  but  that  he  most  likely,  in  his  offhand 
way,  may  have  said,  u  Well,  if  we  are  to  have  this  man  in  with 
out  conditions,  better  a  republic  at  once."  Which,  if  he  did  say, 
he  said  what  the  next  forty  years  proved  to  be  strictly  true. 
However,  he  will  go  on  his  own  way  as  best  he  can.  If  James 
will  give  him  a  loan,  he  and  the  rest  of  the  old  heroes  will  join, 
fit  out  a  fleet  against  Spain,  and  crush  her,  now  that  she  is  tot 
tering  and  impoverished,  once  and  for  ever.  Alas  !  James  has 
no  stomach  for  fighting,  cannot  abide  the  sight  of  a  drawn  sword — 
would  not  provoke  Spain  for  the  world — why,  they  might  send 
Jesuits  and  assassinate  him  ;  and  as  for  the  money,  he  wants 
that  for  very  different  purposes.  So  the  answer  which  he  makes 
to  Raleigh's  proposal  of  war  against  Spain,  is  to  send  him  to  the 
Tower,  and  sentence  him  to  be  hanged,  drawn,  and  quartered,  on 
a  charge  of  plotting  with  Spain. 

Having  read,  we  believe,  nearly  all  that  has  been  written  on 
the  subject  of  this  dark  "  Cobham  plot,"  we  find  but  one  thing 
come  brightly  out  of  the  infinite  confusion  and  mystery,  which 
will  never  be  cleared  up  till  the  day  of  judgment,  and  that  is, 
Raleigh's  innocence.  He,  and  all  England,  and  the  very  man 
who  condemned  him,  knew  that  he  was  innocent.  Every  biog 
rapher  is  forced  to  confess  this,  more  or  less,  in  spite  of  all  efforts 
to  be  what  is  called  "impartial."  So  we  shall  waste  no  words 
upon  the  matter,  only  observing,  that  whereas  Raleigh  is  said  to 
have" slandered  Cecil  to  James,  in  the  same  way  that  Cecil  had 
slandered  him,  one  passage  of  this  Cobham  plot  disproves  utterly 
such  a  story,  which,  after  all,  rests  (as  far  as  we  know)  only  on 
hearsay,  being  "  spoken  of  in  a  manuscript  written  by  one  Buck, 
secretary  to  Chancellor  Egerton."  For  in  writing  to  his  own 
wife,  in  the  expectation  of  immediate  death,  Raleigh  speaks  of 
Cecil  in  a  very  different  tone,  as  one  in  whom  he  trusted  most, 
and  who  has  left  him  in  the  hour  of  need.  We  ask  the  reader 
to  peruse  that  letter,  and  say  whether  any  man  would  write  thus, 
with  death  and  judgment  before  his  face,  of  one  whom  he  knew 
that  he  had  betrayed  ;  or,  indeed,  of  one  who  he  knew  had  betrayed 
him.  We  see  no  reason  to  doubt  that  Raleigh  kept  good  faith 


SIB   WALTER   RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  49 

with  Cecil,  and  that  he  was  ignorant,  till  after  his  trial,  that  Cecil 
was  the  manager  of  the  whole  plot  against  him,  and  as  accom 
plished  a  villain  as  one  meets  with  in  history. 

We  do  not  care  to  enter  into  the  tracasseries  of  this  Cobham 
plot.  Every  one  knows  them  ;  no  one  can  unravel  them.  To 
us  the  moral  and  spiritual  significance  of  the  fact  is  more  inter 
esting  than  all  questions  as  to  Cobham's  lies,  Brooke's  lies,  Arem- 
berg's  lies,  Coke's  lies,  James's  lies : — Let  the  dead  bury  their 
dead.  It  is  the  broad  aspect  of  the  thing  which  is  so  wonderful 
to  us  ;  to  see  how 

"  The  eagle,  towering  in  his  pride  of  place, 
Was  by  a  mousing  owl  hawked  at  and  killed." 

This  is  the  man  who  six  months  ago,  perhaps,  thought  that  he 
and  Cecil  were  to  rule  England  together,  while  all  else  were  the 
puppets  whose  wires  they  pulled.  "  The  Lord  hath  taken  him 
up,  and  dashed  him  down : "  and  by  such  means,  too,  and  on 
such  a  charge  !  Betraying  his  country  to  Spain !  Absurd — • 
incredible.  He  would  laugh  it  to  scorn ;  but  it  is  bitter  earnest. 
There  is  no  escape.  True  or  false,  he  sees  that  his  enemies  will 
have  his  head.  It  is  maddening ;  a  horrible  nightmare.  He 
cannot  bear  it ;  he  cannot  face  (so  he  writes  to  that  beloved  wife) 
the  scorn,  the  taunts,  the  loss  of  honour,  the  cruel  words  of  law 
yers.  He  stabs  himself.  Read  that  letter  of  his,  written  after 
the  mad  blow  had  been  struck ;  it  is  sublime  from  intensity  of 
agony.  The  way  in  which  the  chastisement  was  taken  proves 
how  utterly  it  was  needed,  ere  that  proud,  success-swollen,  world- 
entangled  heart  could  be  brought  right  with  God. 

And  it  is  brought  right.  The  wound  is  not  mortal.  He 
comes  slowly  to  a  better  mind,  and  takes  his  doom  like  a  man. 
That  first  farewell  to  his  wife  was  written  out  of  hell.  The 
second  rather  out  of  heaven.  Read  it,  too,  and  compare ;  and 
then  see  how  the  Lord  has  been  working  upon  this  great  soul : 
infinite  sadness,  infinite  tenderness  and  patience,  and  trust  in 
God  for  himself  and  his  poor  wife  :  "  God  is  my  witness,  it  was 
for  you  and  yours  that  I  desired  life  ;  but  it  is  true  that  I  dis 
dain  myself  for  begging  it.  For  know,  dear  wife,  that  your  son 
is  the  son  of  a  true  man.  and  one  who,  in  his  own  respect, 
despiseth  death  and  all  his  ugly  and  misshapen  forms. 
The  everlasting,  powerful,  infinite,  and  omnipotent  God,  who  is 
goodness  itself,  the  true  life  and  light,  keep  thee  and  thine,  have 
mercy  upon  me,  and  teach  me  to  forgive  my  persecutors  and 
accusers,  and  send  us  to  meet  in  his  glorious  kingdom." 

Is  it  come  to  this,  then  ?     Is  he  fit  to  die,  "at  last  ?     Then  he 
3 


50  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

is  fit  to  live  ;  and  live  he  shall.  The  tyrants  have  not  the  heart 
to  carry  out  their  own  crime,  and  Raleigh  shall  be  respited. 

But  not  pardoned.  No  more  return  for  him  into  that  sinful 
world,  where  he  flaunted  on  the  edge  of  the  precipice,  and 
dropped  heedless  over  it.  God  will  hide  him  in  the  secret  place 
of  his  presence,  and  keep  him  in  his  tabernacle  from  the  strife 
of  tongues  ;  and  a  new  life  shall  begin  for  him ;  a  wiser,  per 
haps  a  happier,  than  he  has  known  since  he  was  a  little  lad  in 
the  farm-house  in  pleasant  Devon  far  away.  On  the  loth  of 
December  he  enters  the  Tower.  Little  dreams  he  that  for  more 
than  twelve  years  those  doleful  walls  would  be  his  home.  Lady 
Raleigh  obtains  leave  to  share  his  prison  with  him,  and,  after 
having  passed  ten  years  without  a  child,  brings  him  a  boy  to 
comfort  the  weary  heart.  The  child  of  sorrow  is  christened 
Carew.  Little  think  those  around  him  what  strange  things  that 
child  will  see  before  his  hairs  be  gray.  She  has  her  maid,  and 
he  his  three  servants ;  some  five  or  six  friends  are  allowed  "  to 
repair  to  him  at  convenient  times."  He  has  a  chamber-door 
always  open  into  the  lieutenant's  garden,  where  he  "  has  con 
verted  a  little  hen-house  into  a  still-room,  and  spends  his  time 
all  the  day  in  distillation."  The  next  spring  a  grant  is  made  of 
his  goods  and  chattels,  forfeited  by  attainder,  to  trustees  named 
by  himself,  for  the  benefit  of  his  family.  So  far,  so  well :  or,  at 
least,  not  as  ill  as  it  might  be  :  but  there  are  those  who  cannot 
leave  the  caged  lion  in  peace. 

Sanderson,  who  had  married  his  niece,  instead  of  paying  up 
the  arrears  which  he  owes  on  the  wine  and  other  offices,  brings 
in  a  claim  of  £2,000.  But  the  rogue  meets  his  match,  and  finds 
himself,  at  the  end  of  a  lawsuit,  in  prison  for  debt.  Greater 
rogues,  however,  will  have  better  fortune,  and  break  through 
the  law  cobwebs  which  have  stopped  a  poor  little  fly  like  San 
derson.  For  Carr,  afterward  Lord  Somerset,  casts  his  eyes  on 
the  Sherborne  land.  It  has  been  included  in  the  conveyance, 
and  should  be  safe;  but  there  are  others  who,  by  instigation 
surely  of  the  devil  himself,  have  had  eyes  to  see  a  flaw  in  the 
deed.  Sir  John  Popham  is  appealed  to.  Who  could  doubt  the 
result?  He  answers,  that  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  words  were 
omitted  by  the  inattention  of  the  engrosser — (Carew  Raleigh 
says  that  but  one  single  word  was  wanting,  which  word  was 
found  notwithstanding  in  the  paper-book,  i.  e.,  the  draft  ;)  but 
that  the  word  not  being  there,  the  deed  is  worthless,  and  the 
devil  may  have  his  way.  To  Carr,  who  has  noihing  of  his  own, 
it  seems  reasonable  enough  to  help  himself  to  what  belongs  to 
others  ;  and  James  gives  him  the  land.  Raleigh  writes  to  him, 
gtmtly,  gracefully,  loftily.  Here  is  an  extract :  "  And  for  your- 


SIR  WALTEK  RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  51 

self,  sir,  seeing  your  fair  day  is  now  in  the  dawn,  and  mine 
drawn  to  the  evening,  your  own  virtues  and  the  king's  grace 
assuring  you  of  many  favours  and  much  honour,  I  beseech  you 
not  to  begin  your  first  building  upon  the  ruins  of  the  innocent ; 
and  that  their  sorrows,  with  mine,  may  not  attend  your  first 
plantation."  He  speaks  strongly  of  the  fairness,  sympathy,  and 
pity,  by  which  the  Scots  in  general  had  laid  him  under  obliga 
tion  ;  argues  from  it  his  own  evident  innocence  ;  and  ends  with 
a  quiet  warning  to  the  young  favourite,  .not  to  "  undergo  the 
curse  of  them  that  enter  into  the  fields  of  the  fatherless."  In 
vain.  Lady  Raleigh,  with  her  children,  entreats  James  on  her 
knees  :  in  vain,  again.  "  I  mun  ha'  the  land,"  is  the  answer ; 
"  I  mun  ha'  it  for  Carr."  And  he  has  it ;  patching  up  the  mat 
ter  after  awhile  by  a  gift  of  £8,000  to  her  and  her  elder  son,  in 
requital  for  an  estate  of  £5,000  a-year. 

So  there  sits  Raleigh,  growing  poorer  day  by  day,  and  cling 
ing  more  and  more  to  that  fair  young  wife,  and  her  noble  boy, 
and  the  babe  whose  laughter  makes  music  within  that  dreary 
cage.  And  all  day  long,  as  we  have  seen,  he  sits  over  his  still, 
compounding  and  discovering,  and  sometimes  showing  himself 
on  the  wall  to  the  people,  who  gather  to  gaze  at  him,  till  Wade 
forbids  it,  fearing  popular  feeling.  In  fact,, the  world  outside 
has  a  sort  of  mysterious  awe  of  him,  as  if  he  were  a  chained 
magician,  who,  if  he  were  let  loose,  might  do  with  them  all  what 
he  would.  Salisbury  and  Somerset  are  of  the  same  mind.  Woe 
to  them  if  that  silver  tongue  should  once  again  be  unlocked ! 

The  Queen,  with  a  woman's  faith  in  greatness,  sends  to  him 
for  "cordials."  Here  is  one  of  them,  famous  in  Charles  the 
Second's  days  as  "Sir  Walter's  Cordial:" — 

"  ^  Zedoary  (                          )  and  saffron,  each,  J-  Ib. 

Distilled  water,  .  .  .  .3  pints. 

Macerate,  &c.,  and  reduced  to  1£  pint. 

Compound  powder  of  crabs'  claws,      .  .  1 6  oz. 

Cinnamon  and  Nutmegs,          .              .  .  2  " 

Cloves,             .              .              .              .  .  1  " 

Cardamom  seeds,         .             .              .  •  2   " 

Double  refined  sugar,               .              .  .  2  Ib. 
Make  a  confection." 

Which,  so  the  world  believes,  will  cure  all  ills  which  flesh  is  heir 
to.  It  does  not  seem  that  Raleigh  so  boasted  himself;  but  the 
people,  after  the  fashion  of  the  time,  seem  to  have  called  all  his 
medicines  "  cordials,"  and  probably  took  for  granted  that  it  was 
by  this  particular  one  that  the  enchanter  cured  Queen  Anne  of  a 
desperate  sickness,  "  whereof  the  physicians  were  at  the  farthest 


52  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

end  of  their  studies "  (no  great  way  to  go  in  those  days)  "  to  find 
the  cause,  and  at  a  nonplus  for  the  cure." 

Raleigh  (this  is  Sir  Anthony  Welden's  account)  asks  for  his 
reward  only  justice.  Will  the  Queen  ask  that  certain  lords  may 
be  sent  to  examine  Cobham,  "whether  he  had  at  any  time 
accused  Sir  Walter  of  any  treason  under  his  hand  ?"  Six  are 
sent ;  Salisbury  among  them.  Cobham  answers,  "  Never ;  nor 
could  I :  that  villain  \Vade  often  solicited  me,  and  not  so  prevail 
ing,  got  me  by  a  trick  to  write  my  name  on  a  piece  of  white 
paper.  So  that  if  a  charge  came  under  my  hand,  it  was  forged 
by  that  villain  Wade,  by  writing  something  above  my  hand,  with 
out  my  consent  or  knowledge."  They  return.  Salisbury  acts  as 
spokesman ;  and  has  his  equivocation  ready.  "  Sir,  my  Lord 
Cobham  has  made  good  all  that  ever  he  wrote  or  said  ; "  having, 
by  his  own  account,  written  nothing  but  his  name.  This  is  Sir 
Anthony  Welden's  story.  One  hopes,  for  the  six  lords'  sake,  it 
may  not  be  true  ;  but  we  can  see  no  reason,  in  the  morality  of 
James's  court,  why  it  should  not  have  been. 

So  Raleigh  must  remain  where  he  is,  and  work  on.  And  he 
does  work.  As  his  captivity  becomes  more  and  more  hopeless, 
so  comes  out  more  and  more  the  stateliness,  self-help,  and  energy 
of  the  man.  Till  now  he  has  played  with  his  pen  :  now  he  will 
use  it  in  earnest ;  and  use  it  as  perhaps  no  prisoner  ever  did. 
Many  a  good  book  lias  been  written  in  a  dungeon.  Don  Quixote, 
the  Pilgrim's  Progress :  beautiful  each  in  its  way,  and  destined 
to  immortality :  but  none  like  the  History  of  the  World,  the 
most  God-fearing  and  God-seeing  history  which  we  know  of 
among  human  writings.  Of  Raleigh's  prison  works  we  have  no 
space  to  speak,  save  to  say,  that  there  is  one  fault  in  them. 
They  are  written  thirty  years  too  late  ;  they  express  the  creed  of 
a  buried  generation,  of  the  men  who  defied  Spain  in  the  name  of 
a  God  of  righteousness, — not  of  men  who  cringe  before  her  in 
the  name  of  a  god  of  power  and  cunning.  The  captive  eagle 
has  written  with  a  quill  from  his  own  wing — a  quill  which  has 
been  wont  ere  now  to  soar  to  heaven.  Every  line  smacks  of  the 
memories  of  Kombre  and  of  Zutphen,  of  Tilbury  Fort  and  of 
Calais  Roads  ;  and  many  a  gray-headed  veteran,  as  he  read 
them,  must  have  turned  away  his  face  to  hide  the  noble  tears, 
as  Ulysses  from  Demodocus  when  he  sang  the  song  of  Troy. 
So  there  sits  Raleigh,  like  the  prophet  of  old,  in  his  lonely  tower 
above  the  Thames,  watching  the  darkness  gather  upon  the  land 
year  by  year,  "  like  the  morning  spread  over  the  mountains,"  the 
darkness  which  comes  before  the  dawn  of  the  Day  of  The  Lord ; 
which  he  shall  never  see  on  earth,  though  it  be  very  near  at 
hand;  and  asks  of  each  new-comer,  Watchman,  what  of  the 
night  ? 


SIE  WALTER  RALEIGH  AND  HIS  TIME.  53 

But  there  is  one  bright  point  at  least  in  the  darkness  ;  one  on 
whom  Raleigh's  eyes,  and  those  of  all  England,  are  fixed  in 
boundless  hope;  one  who,  by  the  sympathy  which  attracts  all 
noble  natures  to  each  other,  clings  to  the  hero  utterly ;  Henry, 
the  Crown  Prince.  "  No  king  but  my  father  would  keep  such 
a  bird  in  a  cage."  The  noble  lad  tries  to  open  the  door  for  the 
captive  eagle  ;  but  in  vain.  At  least  he  will  make  what  use  he 
can  of  his  wisdom.  He  asks  him  for  advice  about  the  new  ship 
he  is  building,  and  has  a  simple,  practical  letter  in  return,  and 
over  and  above  probably  the  two  pamphlets,  "  Of  the  Invention 
of  Ships,"  and  "Observations  on  the  Navy  and  Sea  Service;" 
which  the  Prince  will  never  see.  In  1611  he  asks  Raleigh's 
advice  about  the  foolish  double  marriage  with  the  Prince  and 
Princess  of  Savoy,  and  receives  for  answer  two  plain-spoken 
discourses  as  full  of  historical  learning  as  of  practical  sound 
sense. 

These  are  benefits  which  must  be  repaid.  The  father  will 
repay  them  hereafter  in  his  own  way.  In  the  meanwhile  the 
son  does  so  in  his  way,  by  soliciting  the  Sherborne  estate  as  for 
himself,  intending  to  restore  it  to  Raleigh.  He  succeeds.  Carr 
is  bought  off  for  £25,000,  where  Lady  Raleigh  had  been  bought 
off  with  £8,000  ;  but  neither  Raleigh  nor  his  widow  will  ever  be 
the  better  for  that  bargain,  and  Carr  will  get  Sherborne  back 
again,  and  probably,  in  the  king's  silly  dotage,  keep  the  £25,000 
also. 

For,  as  we  said,  the  Day  of  The  Lord  is  at  hand ;  and  he 
whose  virtues  might  have  postponed  it,  must  be  taken  away,  that 
vengeance  may  fall  where  vengeance  is  due,  and  men  may  know 
that  verily  there  is  a  God  who  judgeth  the  earth. 

In  November,  1612,  Prince  Henry  falls  sick. 

When  he  is  at  the  last  gasp,  the  poor  Queen  sends  to  Raleigh 
for  some  of  the  same  cordial  which  had  cured  her.  Medicine  is 
sent,  with  a  tender  letter,  as  it  well  might  be  ;  for  Raleigh  knew 
how  much  hung,  not  only  for  himself,  but  for  England,  on  the 
cracking  threads  of  that  fair  young  life.  It  is  questioned  at  first 
whether  it  shall  be  administered.  "  The  cordial,"  Raleigh  says, 
"  will  cure  him  or  any  other  of  a  fever,  except  in  case  of 
poison." 

The  cordial  is  administered :  but  it  comes  too  late.  The 
Prince  dies,  and  with  him  the  hopes  of  all  good  men. 

****** 

At  last  after  twelve  years  of  prison,  Raleigh  is  free.  He  is 
sixty-six  years  old  now,  gray-headed  and  worn  down  by  confine 
ment,  study,  and  want  of  exercise  :  but  he  will  not  remember  that 

"  Still  in  his  ashes  live  their  wonted  fires." 


54  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

Now  for  Guiana,  at  last !  which  he  has  never  forgotten ;  to 
which  he  has  been  sending,  with  his  slender  means,  ship  after 
ship  to  keep  the  Indians  in  hope. 

He  is  freed  in  March.  At  once  he  is  busy  at  his  project.  In 
August  he  has  obtained  the  King's  commission  by  the  help  of  Sir 
Ralph  "Win wood,  Secretary  of  State,  who  seems  to  have  believed 
in  Raleigh.  At  least  Raleigh  believed  in  him.  In  March  next 
year  he  has  sailed,  and  with  him  thirteen  ships,  and  more  than 
a  hundred  knights  and  gentlemen,  and  among  them,  strange  to  say, 
Sir  Warham  St.  Leger.  Can  this  be  the  quondam  Marshal  of 
Munster,  under  whom  Raleigh  served  at  Smerwick,  six-and-thirty 
years  ago  ?  The  question  can  hardly  be  answered  but  by  refer 
ence  to  Lord  Doneraile's  pedigree  ;  but  we  know  of  no  other 
Sir  Warham  among  the  St.  Legers.  And  if  it  be  so,  it  is  a  strong 
argument  in  Raleigh's  favour  that  a  man  once  his  superior  in 
command,  and  now  probably  long  past  seventy,  should  keep  his 
faith  in  Raleigh  after  all  his  reverses.  Nevertheless,  the  mere 
fact  of  an  unpardoned  criminal,  said  to  be  "  non  ens  "  in  law,  being 
able  in  a  few  months  to  gather  round  him  such  a  party,  is  proof 
patent  of  what  slender  grounds  there  are  for  calling  Raleigh 
"  suspected  "  and  "  unpopular." 

But  he  does  not  sail  without  a  struggle  or  two.  James  is  too 
proud  to  allow  his  heir  to  match  with  any  but  a  mighty  king,  is 
infatuated  about  the  Spanish  marriage ;  and  Gondomar  is  with 
him,  playing  with  his  hopes  and  with  his  fears  also. 

The  people  are  furious ;  and  have  to  be  silenced  again  and 
again ;  there  is  even  fear  of  rioting.  The  charming  and  smooth 
tongued  Gondomar  can  hate  ;  and  can  revenge,  too.  Five  'pren 
tices,  who  have  insulted  him  for  striking  a  little  child,  are 
imprisoned  and  fined  several  hundred  pounds  each.  And  as  for 
hating  Raleigh,  Gondomar  had  been  no  Spaniard  (to  let  alone 
the  private  reasons  which  some  have  supposed)  had  he  not  hated 
Spain's  ancient  scourge  and  unswerving  enemy.  He  comes  to 
James,  complaining  that  Raleigh  is  about  to  break  the  peace  with 
Spain.  Nothing  is  to  be  refused  him  which  can  further  the  one 
darling  fancy  of  James  ;  and  Raleigh  has  to  give  in  writing  the 
number  of  his  ships,  men,  and  ordnance,  and,  moreover,  the 
name  of  the  country  and  the  very  river  whither  he  is  going. 
This  paper  was  given,  Carew  Raleigh  asserts  positively,  under 
James's  solemn  promise  not  to  reveal  it;  and  Raleigh  himself 
seems  to  have  believed  that  it  was  to  be  kept  private ;  for  he 
writes  afterwards  to  Secretary  Winwood,  in  a  tone  of  astonishment 
and  indignation,  that  the  information  contained  in  his  paper  had 
been  sent  on  to  the  king  of  Spain,  before  he  sailed  from  the 
Thames.  Winwood  could  have  told  him  as  much  already  ;  for 


SIR   WALTEE   RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  55 

Buckingham  had  written  to  Winwood,  on  March  28,  to  ask  him 
why  he  had  not  been  to  the  Spanish  Ambassador  "  to  acquaint 
him  with  the  order  taken  by  his  Majesty  about  Sir  W.  R.'s 
voyage."  But  however  unwilling  the  Secretary  (as  one  of  the 
furtherers  of  the  voyage)  may  have  been  to  meddle  in  the  matter, 
Gondomar  had  had  news  enough  from  another  source  ;  perhaps 
from  James's  own  mouth.  For  the  first  letter  to  the  West  Indies, 
about  Raleigh,  was  dated  from  Madrid,  March  19  ;  and  most 
remarkable  It  is,  that  in  James's  "  Declaration,"  or  rather  apology, 
for  his  own  conduct,  no  mention  whatsoever  is  made  of  his  having 
given  information  to  Gondomar. 

Gondomar  offered,  says  James,  to  let  Raleigh  go  with  one  or 
two  ships  only.  He  might  work  a  mine,  and  that  the  King  of 
Spain  should  give  him  a  safe  convoy  home  with  all  his  gold. 
How  kind  !  And  how  likely  would  Raleigh  and  his  fellow  ad 
venturers  have  been  to  accept  such  an  offer  ;  how  likely,  too,  to 
find  men  who  would  sail  with  them  on  such  an  errand,  to  be 
"  flayed- alive,"  as  many  who  travelled  to  the  Indies  of  late  years 
had  been,  or  to  have  their  throats  cut,  tied  back  to  back,  after 
trading  unarmed  and  peaceably  for  a  month,  as  thirty-six  of 
Raleigh's  men  had  been  but  t\vo  or  three  years  before  in  that  very 
Orinoco.  So  James  is  forced  to  let  the  large  fleet  go  ;  and  to  let  it 
go  well  armed  also  ;  for  the  plain  reason,  that  otherwise  it  dare 
not  go  at  all ;  and  in  the  meanwhile,  letters  are-  sent  from  Spain 
in  which  the  Spaniards  call  the  fleet  "  English  enemies,"  and 
ships  and  troops  are  moved  up  as  fast  as  possible  from  the  Span 
ish  Main. 

But,  say  some,  James  was  as  much  justified  in  telling  Gon 
domar,  and  the  Spaniards  in  defending  themselves.  On  the 
latter  point  there  is  no  doubt. 

"  They  may  get  who  have  the  will, 
And  they  may  keep  who  can." 

But  it  does  seem  hard  on  Raleigh,  after  having  laboured  in  this 
Guiana  business  for  years  ;  after  having  spent  his  money  in  vain 
attempts  to  deliver  these  Guianians  from  their  oppressors.  It  is 
hard,  and  he  feels  it  so.  He  sees  that  he  is  not  trusted ;  that,  as 
James  himself  confesses,  his  pardon  is  refused  simply  to  keep  a 
hold  on  him ;  that,  if  he  fails,  he  is  ruined. 

As  he  well  asks  afterward,  "  If  the  king  did  not  think  that 
Guiana  was  his,  why  let  me  go  thither  at  all  ?  He  knows  that 
it  was  his  by  the  law  of  nations,  for  he  made  Mr.  Harcourt  a 
grant  of  part  of  it.  If  it  be,  as  Gondomar  says,  the  King  of 
Spain's,  then  I  had  no  more  right  to  work  a  mine  in  it  than  to 
burn  a  town."  Argument  which  seems  to  us  unanswerable.  But, 


56  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

says  James,  and  others  with  him,  he  was  forbid  to  meddle  with 
any  country  occupate  or  possessed  by  Spaniards.  Southey,  too, 
blames  him  severely  for  not  having  told  James  that  the  country 
was  already  settled  by  Spaniards.  We  can  excuse  Southey,  but 
not  James,  for  overlooking  the  broad  fact,  that  all  England  knew 
it ;  that  if  they  did  not,  Gondomar  would  have  taken  care  to  tell 
them ;  and  that  he  could  not  go  to  Guiana  without  meddling 
with  Spaniards.  His  former  voyages  and  publications  made  no 
secret  of  it.  On  the  contrary,  one  chief  argument  for  the  plan 
had  been  all  through  the  delivery  of  the  Indians  from  these  very 
Spaniards,  who,  though  they  could  not  conquer  them,  ill  used 
them  in  every  way ;  and  in  his  agreement  with  the  Lords  about 
the  Guiana  voyage  in  1611,  he  makes  especial  mention  of  the 
very  place,  which  will  soon  fill  such  a  part  in  our  story,  "  San 
Thome,  where  the  Spaniards  inhabit,"  and  tells  the  Lords  whom 
to  ask,  as  to  the  number  of  men  who  will  be  wanted  "  to  secure 
Keymish's  passage  to  the  mine  "  against  these  very  Spaniards. 

The  plain  fact  is,  that  Raleigh  went,  with  his  eyes  open,  to 
take  possession  of  a  country  to  which  he  believed  that  he  and 
King  James  had  a  right,  and  that  James  and  his  favourites, 
when  they,  as  he  pleads,  might  have  stopped  him  by  a  word,  let 
him  go,  knowing  as  well  as  the  Spaniards  what  he  intended ;  for 
what  purpose,  but  to  have  an  excuse  for  the  tragedy  which  ended 
all,  it  is  difficult  to  conceive.  "  It  is  evident,"  says  Sir  Richard 
Schomburgk,  "  that  they  winked  at  consequences  which  they 
must  have  foreseen." 

And  here  Mr.  Napier,  on  the  authority  of  Count  Desmarets, 
brings  a  grave  charge  against  Raleigh.  Raleigh,  in  his  apology, 
protests  that  he  only  saw  Desmarets  once  on  board  of  his  vessel. 
Desmarets  says  in  his  dispatches,  that  he  was  on  board  of  her 
several  times,  (whether  he  saw  Raleigh  or  not  more  than  once 
does  not  appear,)  and  that  Raleigh  complained  to  him  of  having 
been  unjustly  imprisoned,  stripped  of  his  estate,  and  so  forth, 
(which,  indeed,  was  true  enough,)  and  that  he  was  on  that  ac 
count  resolved  to  abandon  his  country,  and,  if  the  expedition 
succeeded,  offer  himself  and  the  fruit  of  his  labour  to  the  King 
of  France. 

If  this  be  true,  Raleigh  was  very  wrong.  But  Sir  Richard 
Schomburgk  points  out  that  this  passage,  which  Mr.  Napier  says 
occurs  in  the  last  dispatch,  was  written  a  month  after  Raleigh 
had  sailed ;  and  that  the  previous  dispatch,  written  only,  four 
days  after  Raleigh  sailed,  says  nothing  about  the  matter.  So 
that  it  could  not  have  been  a  very  important  or  fixed  resolution 
on  Raleigh's  part,  if  it  was  only  to  be  recollected  a  month  after. 
We  do  not  say  (as  Sir  Richard  Schomburgk  is  very  much  in- 


SIR   WALTER  RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  57 

clined  to  do)  that  it  was  altogether  a  bubble  of  French  fancy.  It 
is  probable  and  natural  enough  that  Raleigh,  in  his  just  rage  at 
finding  that  James  was  betraying  him,  and  sending  him  out  with 
a  halter  round  his  neck,  to  all  but  certain  ruin,  did  say  wild 
words — that  it  was  better  for  him  to  serve  the  Frenchman  than 
such  a  master — that  perhaps  he  might  go  over  to  the  French 
man  after  all — or  some  folly  of  the  kind,  in  that  same  rash  tone 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  has  got  him  into  trouble  so  often  already : 
and  so  we  leave  the  matter,  saying,  Beware  of  making  any  man 
an  offender  for  a  word,  much  less  one  who  is  being  hunted  to 
death  in  his  old  age,  and  knows  it. 

However  this  may  be,  the  fleet  sails  ;  but  with  no  bright 
auguries.  The  mass  of  the  sailors  are  "  a  scum  of  men  ; "  they 
are  mutinous  and  troublesome  ;  and  what  is  worse,  have  got 
among  them  (as,  perhaps,  they  were  intended  to  have)  the 
notion  that  Raleigh's  being  still  non  ens  in  law  absolves  them 
from  obeying  him  when  they  do  not  choose,  and  permits  them  to 
say  of  him  behind  his  back  what  they  list.  They  have  long 
delays  at  Plymouth.  Sir  Warham's  ship  cannot  get  out  of  the 
Thames.  Pennington,  at  the  Isle  of  Wright,  "cannot  redeem 
his  bread  from  the  bakers,"  and  has  to  ride  back  to  London  to 
get  money  from  Lady  Raleigh.  The  poor  Lady  has  it  not,  and 
gives  a  note  of  hand  to  Mr.  Wood  of  Portsmouth.  Alas  for 
her  !  She  has  sunk  her  £8,000,  and,  beside  that,  sold  her  Wick- 
ham  estate  for  £2,500  ;  arid  all  is  on  board  the  fleet.  "  A  hun 
dred  pieces  "  are  all  the  ready  money  the  hapless  pair  had  left 
on  earth,  and  they  have  parted  them  together.  Raleigh  has  fifty- 
five,  and  she  forty-five,  till  God  send  it  back — if,  indeed,  he  ever 
send  it.  The  star  is  sinking  low  in  the  west.  Trouble  on 
trouble.  Sir  John  Fane  has  neither  men  nor  money ;  Captain 
Witney  has  not  provisions  enough,  and  Raleigh  has  to  sell  his 
plate  in  Plymouth  to  help  him.  Courage !  one  last  struggle  to 
redeem  his  good  name  ! 

Then  storms  off  Scilly — a  pinnace  is  sunk ;  faithful  Captain 
King  driven  back  into  Bristol ;  the  rest  have  to  lie  by  awhile  in 
some  Irish  port  for  a  fair  wind.  Then  Bailey  deserts  with  the 
Southampton  at  the  Canaries  ;  then  "  unnatural  weather,"  so 
that  a  fourteen  days'  voyage  takes  forty  days.  Then  "  the  dis 
temper  "  breaks  out  under  the  line.  The  simple  diary  of  that 
sad  voyage  still  remains,  full  of  curious  and  valuable  nautical 
hints  ;  »but  recording  the  loss  of  friend  on  friend,  four  or  five 
officers,  and,  to  our  great  grief,  our  principal  refiner,  Mr.  Fowler. 
"  Crab,  my  old  servant."  Next,  a  lamentable  twenty-four  hours, 
in  which  they  lose  Pigott  the  lieutenant-general,  "  mine  honest 
frinde  Mr.  John  Talbot,  one  that  had  lived  with  me  a  leven  yeeres 
3* 


58  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

in  the  Tower,  an  excellent  general  skoller,  and  a  faithful  and 
true  man  as  ever  lived,"  with  two  "  very  fair  conditioned  gentle 
men,"  and  "  mine  own  cook  Francis."  Then  more  officers  and  men, 
and  my  "  cusen  Payton."  Then  the  water  is  near  spent,  and 
they  are  forced  to  come  to  half  allowance,  till  they  save  and 
drink  greedily  whole  canfuls  of  the  bitter  rain  water.  At  last 
Raleigh's  own  turn  comes  ;  running  on  deck  in  a  squall,  he  gets 
wet  through,  and  has  twenty  days  of  burning  fever  ;  "  never  man 
suffered  a  more  furious  heat,"  during  which  he  eats  nothing  but 
now  and  then  a  stewed  prune. 

At  last  they  make  the  land,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Urapoho,  far 
south  of  their  intended  goal.  They  ask  for  Leonard  the  Indian, 
"  who  lived  with  me  in  England  three  or  four  years,  the  same 
man  that  took  Mr.  Harcourt's  brother,  and  fifty  men,  when  they 
were  in  extreme  distress,  and  had  no  means  to  live  there  but  by 
the  help  of  this  Indian,  whom  they  made  believe  that  they  were 
my  men  ;"  but  the  faithful  Indian  is  gone  up  the  country,  and 
they  stood  away  for  Cayenne,  "  where  the  cacique  (Harry)  was 
also  my  servant,  and  had  lived  with  me  in  the  Tower  two 
years." 

Courage  once  more,  brave  old  heart !  Here,  at  least,  thou  art 
among  friends,  who  know  thee  for  what  thou  art,  and  look  out 
longingly  for  thee  as  their  deliverer. 

Courage  !  for  thou  art  in  fairy  land  once  more  ;  the  land  of 
boundless  hope  and  possibility.  Though  England  and  England's 
heart  be  changed,  yet  God's  earth  endures,  and  the  harvest  is 
still  here,  waiting  to  be  reaped  by  those  who  dare.  Twenty 
stormy  years  may  have  changed  thee,  but  they  have  not  changed 
the  fairy  land  of  thy  prison  dreams.  Still  the  mighty  Ceiba 
trees  with  their  silk  pods,  tower  on  the  palm-fringed  islets  ;  still 
the  dark  mangrove  thickets  guard  the  mouths  of  unknown 
streams,  whose  granite  sands  are  rich  with  gold.  Friendly 
Indians  come,  and  Harry  (an  old  friend)  with  them,  bringing 
maize,  peccari  pork,  and  armadillos,  plantains,  and  pine  apples, 
and  all  eat  and  gather  strength ;  and  Raleigh  writes  home  to  his 
wife,  "  to  say  that  I  may  yet  be  king  of  the  Indians  here  were 
a  vanity.  But  my  name  hath  lived  among  them  " — as  well  it 
might.  For  many  a  year  those  simple  hearts  shall  look  for  him 
in  vain,  and  more  than  two  centuries  and  a  half  afterwards,  dim 
traditions  of  the  great  white  chief  who  bade  them  stand  out  to 
the  last  against  the  Spaniards,  and  he  would  come  and.  dwell 
among  them,  shall  linger  among  the  Carib  tribes  ;  even,  say  some, 
the  tattered  relics  of  an  English  flag,  which  he  left  among  them, 
that  they  might  distinguish  his  countrymen. 

Happy  for  him  had  he  stayed  there  indeed,  and  been  their  king. 


SIR   WALTER   RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  59 

How  easy  for  him  to  have  grown  old  in  peace  at  Cayenne.  But 
no  ;  he  must  on  for  honour's  sake,  and  bring  home  if  it  were  but 
a  basket  full  of  that  ore,  to  show  the  king,  that  he  may  save  his 
credit.  And  he  has  promised  Arundel  that  he  will  return.  And 
return  he  will.  So  onward  he  goes  to  the  "  Triangle  Islands." 
There  he  sends  off  five  small  vessels  for  Orinoco,  with  four  hun 
dred  men.  The  faithful  Keymis  has  to  command  and  guide  the 
expedition.  Sir  Warham  is  lying  ill  of  the  fever,  all  but  dead  ; 
so  George  Raleigh  is  sent  in  his  place  as  serjeant-major,  and 
with  him  five  land  companies,  one  of  which  is  commanded  by 
young  Walter,  Raleigh's  son  ;  another  by  a  Captain  Parker,  of 
whom  we  shall  have  a  word  to  say  presently. 

Keymis's  orders  are  explicit.  He  is  to  go  up;  find  the  mine, 
and  open  it ;  and  if  the  Spaniards  attack  him,  repel  force  by 
force :  but  he  is  to  avoid,  if  possible,  an  encounter  with  them  : 
not  for  fear  of  breaking  the  peace,  but  because  he  has  "  a  scum 
of  men,  a  few  gentlemen  excepted,  and  I  would  not  for  all  the 
world  receive  a  blow  from  the  Spaniards  to  the  dishonour  of  our 
nation."-  There  we  have  no  concealment  of  hostile  instructions, 
any  more  than  in  Raleigh's  admirable  instructions  to  his  fleet, 
which  after  laying  down  excellent  laws  for  morality,  religion, 
and  discipline,  goes  on  with  clause  after  clause  as  to  what  is  to 
be  done  if  they  meet  "  the  enemy."  What  enemy  ?  Why,  all 
Spanish  ships  which  sail  the  seas ;  and  who,  if  they  happen  to 
be  sufficiently  numerous,  will  assuredly  attack,  sink,  burn,  and 
destroy  Raleigh's  whole  squadron,  for  daring  to  sail  for  that  con 
tinent  which  Spain  claims  as  its  own. 

Raleigh  runs  up  the  coast  to  Trinidad,  and  in  through  the 
serpent's  mouth,  round  Punto  Gallo  to  the  famous  lake  of  Pitch, 
where  all  recruit  themselves  with  fish  and  armadillos,  pheasants 
(Penelope  Cristata),  palmitos  and  guavas,  and  await  the  return 
of  the  expedition  from  the  last  day  of  December  to  the  middle 
of  February.  They  see  something  of  the  Spaniards  meanwhile, 
and  what  they  see  is  characteristic.  Sir  John  Ferns  is  sent  up 
to  the  Spanish  town,  to  try  if  they  will  trade  for  tobacco.  The 
Spaniards  parley,  in  the  midst  of  the  parley  pour  a  volley  of 
musketry  into  them  at  forty  paces,  yet  hurt  never  a  man,  and 
send  them  off  calling  them  thieves  and  traitors.  Fray  Simon's 
Spanish  account  of  the  matter  is,  that  Raleigh  intended  to  dis 
embark  his  men,  that  they  might  march  inland  on  San  Joseph. 
How  he  found  out  the  fact  remains  to  be  proved.  In  the  mean 
while,  we  shall  prefer  believing  that  Raleigh  is  not  likely  to  have 
told  a  lie  for  his  own  private  amusement  in  his  own  private 
diary.  We  cannot  blame  the  Spaniards  much  ;  the  advices  from 
Spain  are  sufficient  to  explain  their  hostility. 


60  KIXGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

On  the  29th  the  Spaniards  attack  three  men  and  a  boy  who 
are  ashore  boiling  the  fossil  pitch ;  kill  one  man,  and  carry  off 
the  boy.  Raleigh,  instead  of  going  up  to  the  Spanish  port  and 
demanding  satisfaction,  as  he  would  have  been  justified  in  doing 
after  this  second  outrage,  remains  quietly  where  he  is,  expecting 
daily  to  be  attacked  by  Spanish  armadas,  and  resolved  to  "  burn 
by  their  sides."  Happily,  or  unhappily  he  escapes  them.  Prob 
ably  he  thinks  they  waited  for  him  at  Margarita,  expecting  him 
to  range  the  Spanish  Main. 

At  last  the  weary  days  of  sickness  and  anxiety  succeed  to  days 
of  terror.  On  the  1st  of  February  a  strange  report  comes  by  an 
Indian.  An  inland  savage  has  brought  confused  and  contradic 
tory  news  down  the  river,  that  San  Thome  is  sacked,  the  gover 
nor  and  two  Spanish  captains  slain,  (names  given)  and  two  Eng 
lish  captains,  nameless.  After  this  entry  follow  a  few  confused 
ones,  set  down  as  happening  in  January,  as  to  attempts  to  extract 
the  truth  from  the  Indians  and  negligence  of  the  mariners,  who 
are  diligent  in  nothing  but  pillaging  and  stealing. — And  so  ends 
abruptly  this  sad  document. 

The  truth  comes  at  last ;  but  when,  does  not  appear,  in  a  letter 
from  Keymis,  dated  January  8.  San  Thome  has  been  stormed, 
sacked,  and  burnt.  Four  refiners'  houses  were  found  in  it ;  the 
best  in  the  town ;  so  that  the  Spaniards  have  been  mining  there : 
but  no  coin  or  bullion  except  a  little  plate.  One  English  captain 
is  killed,  and  that  captain  is  Walter  Raleigh,  his  first-born.  He 
died  leading  them  on,  when  some,  "  more  careful  of  valour  and 
safety,  began  to  recoil  shamefully."  His  last  words  were,  "  Lord 
have  mercy  on  me,  and  prosper  our  enterprise."  A  Spanish 
captain,  Erinetta,  struck  him  down  with  the  butt  of  a  musket 
after  he  had  received  a  bullet.  John  Plessington,  his  serjeant, 
avenged  him  by  running  Erinetta  through  with  his  halbert. 

Keymis  has  not  yet  been  to  the  mine  ;  he  could  not,  "  by 
reason  of  the  murmurings,  discords,  and  vexations  ;  "  but  he  will 
go  at  once,  make  trial  of  the  mine,  and  come  clown  to  Trinidad 
by  the  Macareo  mouth.  He  sends  a  parcel  of  scattered  papers, 
(probably  among  them  the  three  letters  from  the  king  of  Spain,) 
a  roll  of  tobacco,  a  tortoise,  some  oranges  and  lemons.  "  Pray 
ing  God  to  give  you  health  and  strength  of  body,  and  a  mind 
armed  against  all  extremities,  I  rest  ever  to  be  commanded,  your 
lordship's,  Keymish." 

"  O  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son,  would  God  I  had  died  for 
thee!"  But  weeping  is  in  vain.  The  noble  lad  sleeps  there 
under  the  palm-trees,  beside  the  mighty  tropic  stream,  while  the 
fair  Basset,  "  his  bride  in  the  sight  of  God,"  recks  not  of  him 
as  she  wanders  in  the  woods  of  Urnberleigh,  wife  to  the  son  of 


SIR   WALTER  RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  61 

Raleigh's  deadliest  foe.  Raleigh,  Raleigh,  surely  God's  bless 
ing  is  not  on  this  voyage  of  thine.  Surely  He  hath  set  thy 
misdeeds  before  him,  and  thy  secret  sins  in  the  light  of  his  coun 
tenance. 

Another  blank  of  misery  :  but  his  honour  is  still  safe.  Key- 
mis  will  return  with  that  gold  ore,  that  pledge  of  his  good  faith 
for  which  he  has  ventured  all.  Surely  God  will  let  that  come 
after  all,  now  that  he  has  paid  as  its  price  his  first-born's 
blood  ?  .  . 

At  last  Keymis  returns  with  thinned  numbers.  All  are 
weary,  spirit-broken,  discontented,  mutinous.  Where  is  the  gold 
ore  ? 

There  is  none.  Keymis  has  never  been  to  the  mine  after  all. 
His  companions  curse  him  as  a  traitor  who  has  helped  Raleigh 
to  deceive  them  into  ruin  ;  the  mine  is  imaginary,  a  lie.  The 
crews  are  ready  to  break  into  open  mutiny  ;  after  awhile  they 
will  do  so. 

Yes,  God  is  setting  this  man's  secret  sins  in  the  light  of  his 
countenance.  If  he  has  been  ambitious,  his  ambition  has  pun 
ished  itself  now.  If  he  has  cared  more  for  his  own  honour  than 
for  his  wife  and  children,  that  sin  too  has  punished  itself.  If  he 
has  (which  we  affirm  not)  tampered  with  truth  for  the  sake 
of  what  seemed  to  him  noble  and  just  ends,  that  too  has  pun 
ished  itself;  for  his  men  do  not  trust  him.  If  he  has  (which 
we  affirm  not)  done  any  wrong  in  that  matter  of  Cobham,  that 
too  has  punished  itself;  for  his  men,  counting  him  as  "  non  ens  " 
in  law,  will  not  respect  or  obey  him.  If  he  has  spoken  after  his 
old  fashion,  rash  and  exaggerated  words,  and  goes  on  speaking 
them,  even  though  it  be  through  the  pressure  of  despair,  that 
too  shall  punish  itself;  and  for  every  idle  word  that  he  shall  say, 
God  will  bring  him  into  judgment.  And  why,  but  because  he 
is  noble  ?  Why,  but  because  he  is  nearer  to  God  by  a  whole 
heaven  than  Buckinghams,  Henry  Howards,  Salisburys,  and 
others  whom  God  lets  fatten  on  their  own  sins,  having  no  under 
standing,  because  they  are  in  honour,  and  have  children  at  their 
hearts  desire,  and  leave  the  rest  of  their  substance  to  their  babes  ? 
Not  so  does  God  deal  with  his  elect,  when  they  will  try  to 
worship  at  once  self  and  Him ;  He  requires  truth  in  the  inward 
parts,  and  will  purge  them  till  they  are  true,  and  single-eyed, 
and  full  of  light. 

Keymis  returns  with  the  wreck  of  his  party.  The  scene  be 
tween  him  and  Raleigh  may  be  guessed.  Keymis  has  excuse  on 
excuse.  He  could  not  get  obeyed  after  young  Raleigh's  death  : 
he  expected  to  find  that  Sir  Walter  was  either  dead  of  Iris  sick 
ness,  or  of  grief  for  his  son,  and  had  no  wish  "  to  enrich  a  com- 


62  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

pany  of  rascals  who  made  no  account  of  him."  He  dare  not  go 
up  to  the  mine,  because  (and  here  Raleigh  thinks  his  excuse 
fair)  the  fugitive  Spaniards  lay  in  the  craggy  woods  through 
which  he  would  have  to  pass,  and  that  he  had  not  men  enough 
even  to  hold  the  town  securely.  If  he  reached  the  mine,  and 
left  a  company  there,  he  had  no  provisions  for  them  ;  and  he 
dared  not  send  backward  and  forward  to  the  town,  while  the 
Spaniards  were  in  the  woods.  The  warnings  sent  by  Gondomar 
had  undone  all,  and  James's  treachery  had  done  its  work.  So 
Keymis,  "  thinking  it  a  greater  error,  (so  he  said,)  to  discover 
the  mine  to  the  Spaniards,  than  to  excuse  himself  to  the  Com 
pany,  said  that  he  could  not  find  it."  From  all  which,  one 
thing  at  least  is  evident,  that  Keymis  believed  in  the  existence 
of  the  mine. 

Raleigh  "  rejects  these  fancies  ;  "  tells  him  before  divers  gen 
tlemen,  that  "  a  blind  man  might  find  it,  by  the  marks  which 
Keymis  himself  had  set  down  under  his  hand  ; "  that  "  his  case 
of  losing  so  many  men  in  the  woods,"  was  a  mere  pretence  : 
after  Walter  was  slain,  he  knew  that  Keymis  had  no  care  of  any 
man's  surviving.  "  You  have  undone  me,  wounded  my  credit 
with  the  King,  past  recovery."  "As  you  have  followed  your 
own  advice,  and  not  mine,  you  must  satisfy  his  Majesty.  I  shall 
be  glad  if  you  can  do  it :  but  I  cannot."  There  is  no  use  dwell 
ing  on  such  vain  regrets  and  reproaches.  Raleigh  perhaps  is 
bitter,  unjust,  though  we  cannot  see  that  he  was  ;  as  he  himself 
writes  twice,  to  his  wife  and  to  Sir  Ralph  Winwood,  his  "  brains 
are  broken."  He  writes  to  them  both,  and  reopens  the  letters 
to  add  long  postcripts,  at  his  wits'  end.  Keymis  goes  off'; 
spends  a  few  miserable  days  ;  and  then  enters  Raleigh's  cabin. 
He  has  written  his  apology  to  Lord  Arundel,  arid  begs  Raleigh 
to  allow  of  it.  "  No.  You  have  undone  me  by  your  obstinacy, 
I  will  not  favour  or  colour  your  former  folly."  "  Is  that  your 
resolution,  sir  ?  "  "  It  is."  "  I  know  not  then,  sir,  what  course 
to  take."  And  so  he  goes  out,  and  into  his  own  cabin  overhead. 
A  minute  after,  a  pistol  shot  is  heard.  Raleigh  sends  up  a  boy 
to  know  the  reason.  Keymis  answers  from  within,  that  he  has 
fired  it  off  because  it  had  been  long  charged,  and  all  is  quiet. 

Half-an-hour  after,  the  boy  goes  into  the  cabin.  Keymis  is 
lying  on  his  bed,  the  pistol  by  him.  The  boy  moves  him.  The 
pistol  shot  has  broken  a  rib,  and  gone  no  further;  but  as  the 
corpse  is  turned  over,  a  long  knife  is  buried  in  that  desperate 
heart.  Another  of  the  old  heroes  is  gone  to  his  wild  account. 

Gradually  drops  of  explanation  ooze  out.  The  "  Serjeant- 
Major,  Italeigh's  nephew,  and  others,  confess  that  Keymis  told 
them  that  he  could  have  brought  them  in  two  hours  to  the  mine : 


SIR   WALTER  RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  63 

but  as  the  young  heir  was  slain,  and  his  father  was  unpardoned, 
and  not  like  to  live,  he  had  no  reason  to  open  the  mine,  either 
for  the  Spaniard  or  the  King"  Those  latter  words  are  signifi 
cant.  What  cared  the  old  Elizabethan  seaman  for  the  weal  of 
such  a  king  ?  And,  indeed,  what  good  to  such  a  king  would  all 
the  mines  in  Guiana  be  ?  They  answered  that  the  king,  never 
theless,  had  "  granted  Raleigh  his  heart's  desire  under  the  great 
seal."  He  replied  that  "  the  grant  to  Raleigh  was  to  a  man  non 
ens  in  law,  and  therefore  of  no  force."  Here,  too,  James's  policy 
has  worked  well.  How  could  men  dare  or  persevere  under  such 
a  cloud  ? 

How,  indeed,  could  they  have  found  heart  to  sail  at  all  ?  The 
only  answer  is,  that  they  knew  Raleigh  well  enough  to  have  utter 
faith  in  him,  and  that  Keymis  himself  knew  of  the  mine. 

Puppies  at  home  in  England  gave  out  that  he  had  killed  him 
self  from  remorse  at  having  deceived  so  many  gentlemen  with 
an  imaginary  phantom.  Every  one  of  course,  according  to  his 
measure  of  charity,  has  power  and  liberty  to  assume  any  motive 
which  he  will.  Ours  is  simply  the  one  which  shows  upon  the 
face  of  the  documents ;  that  the  old  follower,  devoted  alike  to  the 
dead  son  and  to  the  doomed  father,  feeling  that  he  had,  he  scarce 
knew  how,  failed  in  the  hour  of  need,  frittered  away  the  last 
chance  of  a  mighty  enterprise,  which  had  been  his  fixed  idea  for 
years,  and  ruined  the  man  whom  he  adored,  avenged  upon  himself 
the  fault  of  having  disobeyed  orders,  given  peremptorily,  and  to 
be  peremptorily  executed. 

Here,  perhaps,  our  tale  should  end ;  for  all  beyond  is  but  the 
waking  of  the  corpse.  The  last  death-struggle  of  the  Eliza 
bethan  heroism  is  over,  and  all  its  remains  vanish  slowly,  in  an 
undignified  sickening  way.  All  epics  end  so.  After  the  war  of 
Troy,  Achilles  must  die  by  coward  Paris'  arrow,  in  some  myste 
rious  confused  pitiful  fashion  ;  and  stately  Hecuba  must  rail  her 
self  into  a  very  dog,  and  bark  for  ever  shamefully  around  lonely 
Cynossema.  Young  David  ends  as  a  dotard — Solomon  as  worse. 
Glorious  Alexander  must  die  half  of  fever,  half  of  drunkenness, 
as  the  fool  dieth.  Charles  the  Fifth,  having  thrown  away  all  but 
his  follies,  ends  in  a  convent,  a  superstitious  imbecile  ;  Napoleon 
squabbles  to  the  last  with  Sir  Hudson  Lowe  about  champagne. 
It  must  be  so;  and  the  glory  must  be  God's  alone.  For  in 
great  men,  and  great  times,  there  is  nothing  good  or  vital,  but 
what  is  of  God,  and  not  of  man's  self.  And  when  he  tuketh 
away  that  divine  breath  they  die,  and  return  again  to  their  dust. 
But  the  earth  does  not  lose  ;  for  when  He  sendeth  forth  his  spirit 
they  live,  and  renew  the  face  of  the  earth.  A  new  generation 


64  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

arises,  with  clearer  sight,  with  fuller  experience,  sometimes  with 
nobler  aims  ;  and, — 

"  The  old  order  changeth,  giving  place  to  the  new, 
And  God  fulfils  himself  in  many  ways." 

The  Elizabethan  epic  did  not  end  a  day  too  soon.  There  was 
no  more  life  left  in  it ;  and  God  had  something  better  in  store  for 
England.  Raleigh's  ideal  was  a  noble  one  :  but  God's  was  nobler 
far.  Raleigh  would  have  made  her  a  gold  kingdom,  like  Spain, 
and  destroyed  her  very  vitals  by  that  gold,  as  Spain  was  de 
stroyed.  And  all  the  while  the  great  and  good  God  was  looking 
steadfastly  upon  that  little  struggling  Virginian  village,  Raleigh's 
first-born,  forgotten  in  his  new  mighty  dreams,  and  saying, 
"  Here  will  I  dwell,  for  I  have  a  delight  therein."  There,  and 
not  in  Guiana ;  upon  the  simple  tillers  of  the  soil,  not  among 
wild  reckless  gold-hunters,  would  His  blessing  rest.  The  very 
coming  darkness  would  bring  brighter  light.  The  evil  age  itself 
would  be  the  parent  of  new  good,  and  drive  across  the  seas  stead 
fast  Pilgrim  Fathers,  and  generous  Royalist  Cavaliers,  to  be  the 
parents  of  a  mightier  nation  than  has  ever  yet  possessed  the 
earth.  Verily,  God's  ways  are  wonderful,  and  his  counsels  in 
the  great  deep. 

So  ends  the  Elizabethan  epic.  Must  we  follow  the  corpse  to 
the  grave  ?  It  is  necessary. 

And  now,  "  you  gentlemen  of  England,  who  sit  at  home  at 
ease,"  what  would  you  have  done  in  like  case  ? — Your  last  die 
thrown  ;  your  last  stake  lost ;  your  honour,  as  you  fancy,  stained 
for  ever ;  your  eldest  son  dead  in  battle — What  would  you  have 
done  ?  What  Walter  Raleigh  did  was  this.  He  kept  his  prom 
ise.  He  had  promised  Lord  Arundel  to  return  to  England  ;  and 
return  he  did. 

But  it  is  said,  his  real  intention,  as  he  himself  confessed,  was 
to  turn  pirate,  and  take  the  Mexico  fleet. 

That  wild  thoughts  of  such  a  deed  may  have  crossed  his  mind, 
may  have  been  a  terrible  temptation  to  him,  may  even  have 
broken  out  in  hasty  words,  one  does  not  deny.  He  himself  says 
that  he  spoke  of  such  a  thing,  "  to  keep  his  men  together."  All 
depends  on  how  the  words  were  spoken.  The  form  of  the  sen 
tence,  the  tone  of  voice,  is  every  thing.  Who  could  blame  him, 
if,  seeing  some  of  the  captains  whom  he  had  most  trusted  de 
serting  him,  his  men  heaping  him  with  every  slander,  and  as  he 
solemnly  swore  on  the  scaffold,  calling  witnesses  thereto  by 
name,  forcing  him  to  take  an  oath  that  he  would  not  return 
to  England  before  they  would  have  him,  and  locking  him  into 
his  own  cabin — who  could  blame  him,  we  ask,  for  saying,  in 


SIR  WALTER  RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  65 

that  daring  off-hand  way  of  his,  which  has  so  often  before  o-ot 
him  into  trouble,  "  Come,  my  lads,  do  not  despair.  If  the  wont 
comes  to  the  worst,  there  is  the  Plate-fleet  to  fall  back  upon  ?  " 
When  we  remember,  too,  that  the  taking  of  the  said  Plate-fleet 
was,  in  Raleigh's  eyes,  an  altogether  just  thing;  and  that  he 
knew  perfectly,  that  if  he  succeeded  therein,  he -would  be  backed 
by  the  public  opinion  of  all  England,  and  probably  buy  his  pardon 
of  James,  who,  if  he  loved  Spain  well,  loved  money  better;  our 
surprise  rather  is,  that  he  did  not  go  and  do  it.  As  for  any  meet 
ing  of  captains  in  his  cabin,  and  serious  proposal  of  such  a  plan,  we 
believe  it  to  be  simply  one  of  the  innumerable  lies  which  James 
inserted  in  his  declaration,  gathered  from  the  tales  of  men,  who 
fearing,  (and  reasonably,)  lest  their  heads  should  follow  Raleigh's, 
tried  to  curry  favour  by  slandering  him.  This  "  Declaration " 
has  been  so  often  exposed,  that  we  may  safely  pass  it  by ;  and 
pass  by  almost  as  safely,  the  argument  which  some  have  drawn 
from  a  chance  expression  of  his  in  his  pathetic  letter  to  Lady 
Raleigh,  in  which  he  "  hopes  that  God  would  send  him  some 
what  before  his  return."  To  prove  an  intention  of  piracy  in  the 
despairing  words  of  a  ruined  man  writing  to  comfort  a  ruined 
wife  for  the  loss  of  her  first-born,  is  surely  to  deal  out  hard 
measure.  Heaven  have  mercy  upon  us,  if  all  the  hasty  words 
which  woe  has  wrung  from  our  hearts  are  to  be  so  judged  either 
by  man  or  God  ! 

Sir  Julius  Caesar,  again,  one  of  the  commission  appointed  to 
examine  him,  informs  us,  that  on  being  confronted  with  Captains 
St.  Leger  and  Pennington,  he  confessed  that  he  proposed  the 
taking  of  the  Mexico  fleet,  if  the  mine  failed.  To  which  we 
can  only  answer,  that  all  depends  on  how  the  thing  was  said, 
and  that  this  is  the  last  fact  which  we  should  find  in  Sir  Julius's 
notes,  which  are,  it  is  confessed,  so  confused,  obscure,  and  full 
of  gaps,  as  to  be  often  hardly  intelligible.  The  same  remark 
applies  to  Wilson's  story,  which  we  agree  with  Mr.  Tytler  in 
thinking  worthless.  Wilson,  it  must  be  understood,  is  employed, 
after  Raleigh's  return,  as  a  spy  upon  him,  which  office  he  exe 
cutes,  all  confess,  (and  Wilson  himself  as  much  as  any,)  as  falsely, 
treacherously,  and  hypocritically  as  did  ever  sinful  man  ;  and, 
inter  alia,  he  has  this,  "  This  day  he  told  me  what  discourse  he 
and  the  Lord  Chancellor  had  about  taking  the  Plate-fleet,  which 
he  confessed  he  would  have  taken  had  he  lighted  on  it.  To 
which  my  Lord  Chancellor  said,  "  Why,  you  would  have  been 
a  pirate."  "  Oh,"  quoth  he,  "  did  you  ever  know  of  any  that 
were  pirates  for  millions  ?  They  only  that  wish  for  small  things 
are  pirates."  Now,  setting  aside  the  improbability  that  Raleigh 
should  go  out  of  his  way  to  impeach  himself  to  the  man  whom 


66  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

he  must  have  known  was  set  there  to  find  matter  for  his  death, 
all,  we  say,  depends  on  how  it  was  said.  If  the  Lord  Chancel 
lor  ever  said  lo  Raleigh,  "To  lake,  I  he.  Mexico  fleet  would  be 
piracy,"  it  would  have  been  just  like,  Raleigh  lo  give  such  an 
answer.  The  speech  is  a  perfectly  true  one:  Raleigh  knew  the 
world,  no  man  better;  and  saw  through  its  hollowness,  and  the 
cant  and  hypocrisy  of  his  generation  ;  and  IK?  sardonically  states 
an  undeniable  fiict.  lie  is  riot  expressing  his  own  morality,  but 
thai,  of  l  he  world,  just  as  he  is  doing  in  that  passage  of  his  apology, 
about  which  we  must  complain  of  Mr.  Napier.  "  It*was  a  maxim 
of  his,"  says  Mr.  Napier,  "  that  good  suecess  admits  of  no  ex 
amination."  This  is  not  fair.  The  sentence  in  the  original  goes 
on,  "  so  the  contrary  allows  of  no  excuse,  however  reasonable 
and  just  whatsoever."  His  argument  all  through  the  beginning 
of  the  apology,  supported  by  instance  on  instance  from  history, 
is, — I  cannot  gel  a  just,  hearing,  because  I  have  failed  in  opening 
this  mine.  So  it  is  always.  Glory  covers  the  multitude  of  sins. 
But  a  man  who  has  failed  is  a  fair  mark  for  every  slanderer, 
puppy,  ignoramus,  discontented  mutineer;  as  I  am  now.  What 
else,  in  the  name  of  common  sense,  could  have  been  his  argu 
ment  ?  Does  Mr.  Napier  really  think  that  Raleigh,  even  if  in  the 
face  of  all  the  noble  and  pious  words  which  he  had  written,  he 
held  so  immoral  a  doctrine,  would  have  been  shameless  and 
senseless  enough  to  assert  his  own  rascality  in  an  apology  ad 
dressed  to  the  most  "  religious  "  of  kings  in  the  most  canting  of 
generation!  ? 

But  still  more  astonished  arc  we  at  the  use  which  Mr.  Napier 
has  made  of  Captain  1'arker's  letter.  The,  letter  is  written  by  a 
man  in  a  state  of  frantic  rage  and  disappointment.  There  never, 
was  any  mine,  he  believes  now.  Keymis's  "delays  we  found 
mere  illusions  ;  for  he.  was  false  to  all  men  and  hateful  to  him 
self,  loathing  to  live  since  he  could  do  no  more  villainy.  I  will 
speak  no  more  of  this  hateful  fellow  to  God  and  man."  And  it 
is  on  the.  testimony  of  a  man  in  this  temper  that  we  are  asked  to 
believe  that  "the  admiral  and  vice-admiral,"  Raleigh  and  St. 
.Legrr,  are  going  lo  the  Western  Islands  "to  look  for  home 
ward-bound  men,"  if,  indeed,  the  looking  for  homeward-bound 
men  means  really  looking  for  the  Spanish  Heel,  and  not  merely 
for  recruits  for  their  crews.  We  never  recollect  (and  we  have, 
read  pretty  fully  the  sea-records  of  those  days)  such  a  synonym 
used  either  for  the  Mexican  or  Indian  ilect.  But  let  this  be  as 
it  may,  the  letter  proves  loo  much.  For,  first,  it  proves,  that 
whosoever  is  not  going  to  turn  pirate,  our  calm  and  charitable 
friend  Captain  Parker  is;  for  "  for  my  part,  by  the  permission  of 
God,  I  will  either  make  a  voyage,  or  bury  myself  in  the  sea." 


SIR  WALTER   RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  tf 

Now,  what  making  a  voyage  is,  all  men  know;  and  the  sum 
total  of  the  letter  is,  that  a  man  intending  to  turn  pirate  himself, 
accuses,  under  the  influence  of  violent  pa.ssion,  his  comrades  of 
doing  the  like.  We  may  believe  him  about,  himself:  about 
others,  we  shall  wait  for  testimony  a  little  less  interested. 

But  the  letter  proves  too  much  again.  For  Parker  says  that 
"  Witney  and  Woolaston  are  gone  off  a-head  to  look  for  home 
ward  bound  men,"  thus  agreeing  with  Raleigh's  message  to  his 
wife,  that  "  Witney,  for  whom  I  sold  all  my  plate  at  Plymouth, 
and  to  whom  I  gave  more  credit  and  countenance  than  to  all  the 
captains  of  my  fleet,  ran  from  me  at  the  Grenadas,  and  Wool 
aston  with  him." 

And  now,  reader,  how  does  this  of  Witney,  and  Woolaston, 
and  Parker's  intentions  to  pirate  separately,  (if  it  be  true,)  agree 
with  King  James's  story  of  Raleigh's  calling  a  council  of  war 
and  proposing  an  attack  on  the  Plate-fleet?  One  or  the  other 
must  needs  be  a  lie  ;  probably  both.  Witney's  ship  was  of  only 
1GO  tons;  Woolaston's  probably  smaller.  Five  such  ships  would 
be  required,  as  any  reader  of  Hakluyt  must  know,  to  take  ;i 
single  carack;  and  it  would  be  no  use  running  the  risk  of  hang 
ing  for  any  less  prize.  The  Spanish  Main  was  warned  and 
armed,  and  the  Western  Isles  also.  Is  it  possible  that  these 
two  men  would  have  been  insane  enough  in  such  circumstances, 
to  go  without  Raleigh,  if  they  could  have  gone  with  him  ?  And 
is  it  possible  that  he,  if  he  had  any  set  purpose  of  attacking  the 
Plate-fleet,  would  not  have  kept  them,  in  order  to  attempt  that 
with  him,  which  neither  they  nor  he  could  do  without  each  other? 
Moreover,  no  piratical  act  ever  took  place,  (and  if  any  had,  we 
would  have  heard  enough  about  it ;)  and  why  is  Parker  to  be 
believed  against  Raleigh  alone,  when  there  is  little  doubt  that 
lie  slandered  all  the  rest  of  the  captains  ?  Lastly,  it  was  to  this 
very  Parker,  with  Mr.  Tresharn,  and  another  gentleman,  that 
Raleigh  appealed  by  name  on  the  scaffold,  as  witnesses  that  it 
was  his  crew  who  tried  to  keep  him  from  going  home,  and  not 
he  them. 

Our  own  belief  is,  and  it  is  surely  simple  and  rational  enough, 
that  Raleigh's  "  bruins,"  as  he  said,  "  were  broken  ;"  that  he  had 
no  distinct  plan:  but  that  loth  to  leave  the  new  world  without 
a  second  attempt  on  Guiana,  he  went  up  to  Newfoundland  to 
revictuul,  "and  with  good  hope,"  (as  ne  wrote  to  Winwood  him 
self,)  "of  keeping  the  sea  till  August  with  some  four  reasonable 
good  ships,"  (probably,  as  Oldys  remarks,  to  try  a  trading  voy 
age,)  but  found  his  gentlemen  too  dispirited  and  incredulous, 
his  men  too  mutinous  to  do  any  thing;  and  seeing  his  ships  go 
home  one  by  one,  at  last  followed  them  himself,  because  he  had 


68  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

promised  Arunclel  and  Pembroke  so  to  do,  having,  after  all,  as 
lie  declared  on  the  scaffold,  extreme  difficulty  in  persuading  his 
men  to  land  at  all  in  England.  The  other  lies  about  him,  as  of 
his  having  intended  to  desert  his  soldiers  in  Guiana,  his  having 
taken  no  tools  to  work  the  mine,  and  so  forth,  one  only  notices  to 
say,  that  the  declaration  takes  care  to  make  the  most  of  them, 
without  deigning  (after  its  fashion)  to  adduce  any  proof  but 
anonymous  hearsays.  If  it  be  true  that  Bacon  drew  up  that 
famous  document,  it  reflects  no  credit  either  on  his  honesty  or  his 
"  inductive  science." 

So  Raleigh  returns,  anchors  in  Plymouth.  Pie  finds  that 
Captain  North  has  brought  home  the  news  of  his  mishaps,  and 
that  there  is  a  proclamation  against  him,  (which  by-the-bye  lies, 
for  it  talks  of  limitations  and  cautions  given  to  Raleigh  which  do 
not  appear  in  his  commission,)  and,  moreover,  a  warrant  out 
for  his  apprehension.  He  sends  his  men  on  shore,  and  starts 
for  London  to  surrender  himself,  in  company  with  faithful  Cap 
tain  King,  who  alone  clings  to  him  to  the  last,  and  from  whom 
we  have  details  the  next  few  days.  Near  Ashburton,  he  is  met 
by  Sir  Lewis  Stukely,  his  near  kinsman,  vice-admiral  of  Devon, 
who  has  orders  to  arrest  him.  Raleigh  tells  him  that  he  has 
saved  him  the  trouble ;  and  the  two  return  to  Plymouth,  where 
Stukely,  strangely  enough,  leaves  him  at  liberty,  and  rides  about 
the  country.  We  are  slow  in  imputing  baseness :  but  we  can 
not  help  suspecting  from  Stukely's  subsequent  conduct,  that  he 
had  from  the  first  private  orders  to  give  Raleigh  a  chance  of 
trying  to  escape,  in  order  to  have  a  handle  against  him,  such  as 
his  own  deeds  had  not  yet  given. 

The  ruse,  if  it  existed  then  (as  it  did  afterwards)  succeeds. 
Raleigh  hears  bad  news.  Gondomar  has  (or  has  not)  told  his 
story  to  the  king  by  crying,  "  Piratas !  piratas  !  piratas  ! "  and 
then  rushing  out  without  explanation.  James  is  in  terror  lest 
what  has  happened  should  break  off  the  darling  Spanish  match. 
Raleigh  foresees  ruin,  perhaps  death.  Life  is  sweet,  and  Guiana 
is  yet  where  it  was.  He  may  win  a  basketful  of  the  ore  still  and 
prove  himself  no  liar.  He  will  escape  to  France.  Faithful 
King  finds  him  a  Rochelle  ship  ;  he  takes  boat  to  her,  goes  half 
way,  and  returns.  Honour  is  sweeter  than  life,  and  James  may 
yet  be  just.  The  next  day  he  bribes  the  master  to  wait  for  him 
one  more  day,  starts  for  the  ship  once  more,  and  again  returns 
to  Plymouth,  (King  will  make  oath)  of  his  own  free  will.  The 
temptation  must  have  been  terrible,  and  the  sin  none.  What 
kept  him  from  yielding,  but  innocence  and  honour  ?  He  will 
clear  himself;  and  if  not,  abide  the  worst.  Stukely  and  James 
found  out  these  facts,  and  made  good  use  of  them  afterwards. 


SIR   WALTER  RALEIGH  AND   HIS   TIME.  69 

For  now  comes  "  a  severe  letter  from  my  Lords "  to  bring 
Raleigh  up  as  speedily  as  his  health  will  permit ;  and  with  it 
conies  one  Mannourie,  a  French  quack,  of  whom  honest  King 
takes  little  note  at  the  time,  but  who  will  make  himself  remem 
bered. 

And  now  begins  a  series  of  scenes  most  pitiable.  Raleigh's 
brains  are  indeed  broken.  He  is  old,  worn  out  with  the  effects 
of  his  fever,  lame,  ruined,  broken-hearted,  and  for  the  first  time . 
in  his  life,  weak  and  silly.  He  takes  into  his  head  the  paltriest 
notion  that  he  can  gain  time  to  pacify  the  king  by  feigning  him 
self  sick.  He  puts  implicit  faith  in  the  rogue  Mannourie,  whom 
he  has  never  seen  before.  He  sends  forward  Lady  Raleigh  to 
London — perhaps  ashamed,  (as  who  would  not  have  been  ?)  to 
play  the  fool  in  that  sweet  presence  ;  and  with  her  good  Captain 
King,  who  is  to  engage  one  Cotterell,  an  old  servant  of  Raleigh's, 
to  mid  a  ship  wherein  to  escape,  if  the  worst  comes  to  the  worst. 
Cotterell  sends  King  to  an  old  boatswain  of  his,  who  owns  a 
ketch.  She  is  to  lie  off  Tilbury ;  and  so  King  waits  Raleigh's 
arrival.  What  passed  in  the  next  four  or  five  days  will  never 
be  truly  known,  ibr  our  only  account  comes  from  two  self-con 
victed  villains,  Stukely  and  Mannourie.  On  these  disgusting 
details  we  shall  not  enter.  First,  because  we  cannot  trust  a 
word  of  them  ;  secondly,  because  no  one  will  wish  to  hear  them 
who  feels,  as  we  do,  how  pitiable  and  painful  is  the  sight  of  a 
great  heart  and  mind  utterly  broken.  Neither  shall  we  spend 
time  on  Stukely's  villainous  treatment  of  Raleigh,  (for  which  he 
had  a  commission  from  James  in  writing,)  his  pretending  to  help 
him  to  escape,  going  down  the  Thames  in  a  boat  with  him,  try 
ing  in  vain  to  make  honest  King  as  great  a  rogue  as  himself. 
Like  most  rascalities,  Stukely's  conduct,  even  as  he  himself 
states  it,  is  very  obscure.  All  that  we  can  see  is,  that  Cotterell 
told  Stukely  every  thing  ;  that  Stukely  bade  Cotterell  carry  on 
the  deceit ;  that  Stukely  had  orders  from  head-quarters  to  incite 
Raleigh  to  say  or  do  something  which  might  form  a  fresh  ground 
of  accusal ;  that  being  a  clumsy  rogue,  he  failed,  and  fell  back 
on  abetting  Raleigh's  escape,  as  a  last  resource.  Be  it  as  it  may, 
he  throws  off  the  mask  as  soon  as  Raleigh  has  done  enough  to 
prove  an  intent  to  escape ;  arrests  him,  and  conducts  him  to  the 
Tower. 

There  two  shameful  months  are  spent  in  trying  to  find  out 
some  excuse  for  Raleigh's  murder.  Wilson  is  set  over  him  as  a 
spy  ;  his  letters  to  his  wife  are  intercepted,  livery  art  is  used 
to  extort  a  confession  of  a  great  plot  with  France,  and  every 
art  fails  utterly — simply,  it  seems  to  us,  because  there  was  no 
plot.  Raleigh  writes  an  apology,  letters  of  entreaty,  self-justifi- 


70  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

cation,  what  not ;  all,  in  our  opinion,  just  and  true  enough  ;  but 
like  his  speech  on  the  scaffold,  weak,  confused — the  product  of  a 
"broken  brain."  However,  his  head  must  come  off;  and  as  a 
last  resource,  it  must  be  taken  off  upon  the  sentence  of  fifteen 
years  ago,  and  he  who  was  condemned  for  plotting  with  Spain, 
must  die  for  plotting  against  her.  It  is  a  pitiable  business  :  but, 
as  Osborne  says,  in  a  passage,  (p.  108  of  his  Memoirs  of  James,) 
for  which  we  freely  forgive  him  all  his  sins  and  lies,  (and  they 
are  many,) — 

"  As  the  foolish  idolaters  were  wont  to  sacrifice  the  choicest  of  their 
children  to  the  devil,  so  our  king  gave  up  his  incomparable  jewel  to 
the  will  of  this  monster  of  ambition,  (the  Spaniard,)  under  the  pre 
tence  of  a  superannuated  transgression,  contrary  to  the  opinion  of  the 
more  honest  sort  of  gownsmen,  who  maintained  that  his  Majesty's 
pardon  lay  inclusively  in  the  commission  he  gave  him  on  his  setting 
out  to  sea ;  it  being  incongruous  that  he,  who  remained  under  the 
notion  of  one  dead  in  the  law,  should  as  a  general  dispose  of  the  lives 
of  others,  not  being  himself  master  of  his  own." 

But  no  matter.  He  must  die.  The  Queen  intercedes  for 
him,  as  do  all  honest  men  :  but  in  vain.  He  has  twenty-four 
hours'  notice  to  prepare  for  death  ;  eats  a  good  breakfast,  takes 
a  cup  of  sack  and  a  pipe  ;  makes  a  rambling  speech,  in  which 
one  notes  only  the  intense  belief  that  he  is  an  honest  man,  and 
the  intense  desire  to  make  others  believe  so,  in  the  very  smallest 
matters  ;  and  then  dies  smilingly,  as  one  weary  of  life.  One 
makes  no  comment.  Raleigh's  life  really  ended  on  the  day  that 
poor  Keymis  returned  from  San  Thome. 

And  then  ? 

As  we  said,  Truth  is  stranger  than  fiction.  No  dramatist 
dare  invent  a  "  poetic  justice"  more  perfect  than  fell  upon  the 
traitor.  It  is  not  always  so,  no  doubt.  God  reserves  many  a 
great  sinner  for  that  most  awful  of  all  punishments,  impunity. 
But  there  are  crises  in  a  nation's  life  in  which  God  makes  terri 
ble  examples,  to  put  before  the  most  stupid  and  sensual  the  choice 
of  Hercules,  the  upward  road  of  life,  the  downward  one  which 
leads  to  the  pit.  Since  the  time  of  Pharaoh  and  the  Red  Sea 
host,  history  is  full  of  such  palpable,  unmistakable  revelations  of 
the  Divine  Nemesis  ;  and  in  England,  too,  at  that  moment,  the 
crisis  was  there  ;  and  the  judgment  of  God  was  revealed  accord 
ingly.  Sir  Lewis  Stukely  remained  it  seems  at  Court ;  high  in 
favour  with  James :  but  he  found,  nevertheless,  that  people 
looked  darkly  on  him.  Like  all  self-convicted  rogues,  he  must 
needs  thrust  his  head  into  his  own  shame,  and  one  day  he  goes 
to  good  old  Lord  Charles  Howard's  house ;  for  being  Vice- 
Admiral  of  Devon,  he  has  affairs  with  the  old  Armada  hero. 


SIR   WALTER  RALEIGH   AND   HIS   TIME.  71 

The  old  lion  explodes  in  an  unexpected  roar,  "  Darest  thou 
come  into  my  presence,  thou  base  fellow,  who  art  reputed  the 
common  scorn  and  contempt  of  all  men  ?  Were  it  not  in  mine 
own.  house,  I  would  cudgel  thee  with  my  staff  for  presuming  to 
speak  to  me  ! "  Stukely,  his  tail  between  his  legs,  goes  off  and 
complains  to  James.  "  What  should  I  do  with  him  ?  Hang 
him  ?  On  my  sawle,  mon,  if  I  hung  all  that  spoke  ill  of  thee, 
all  the  trees  in  the  island  were  too  few."  Such  is  the  gratitude 
of  kings,  thinks  Stukely,  and  retires  to  write  foolish  pamphlets 
in  self-justification,  which,  unfortunately  for  his  memory,  still 
remain  to  make  bad  worse. 

Within  twelve  months  he,  the  rich  and  proud  Vice-Admiral 
of  Devon,  with  a  shield  of  sixteen  quarterings,  and  the  blood- 
royal  in  his  veins,  was  detected  debasing  the  King's  coin  within 
the  precincts  of  the  royal  palace,  together  with  his  old  accom 
plice,  who,  being  taken,  confessed  that  his  charges  against 
Raleigh  were  false.  He  fled,  a  ruined  man,  back  to  his  native 
county,  and  his  noble  old  seat  of  Affton ;  but  Ate  is  on  the  heels 
of  such, — 

"  Slowly  she  tracks  him  and  sure,  as  a  lyme-hound, 

sudden  she  grips  him, 
Crushing  him,  blind  in  his  pride,  for  a  sign  and  a  terror  to  mortals." 

A  terrible  plebiscitum  had  been  passed  in  the  West  country 
against  the  betrayer  of  its  last  Worthy.  The  gentlemen  closed 
their  doors  against  him  ;  the  poor  refused  him  (so  goes  the 
legend)  fire  and  water.  Driven  by  the  Furies,  he  fled  from 
Affton,  and  wandered  northward  down  the  vale  of  Taw,  away  to 
Appledore,  and  there  took  boat,  and  out  into  the  boundless 
Atlantic,  over  the  bar,  now  crowded  with  shipping  for  which 
Raleigh's  genius  had  discovered  a  new  trade  and  a  new  world. 

Sixteen  miles  to  the  westward,  like  a  blue  cloud  on  the  hori 
zon,  rises  the  Ultima  Thule  of  Devon,  the  little  isle  of  Lundy. 
There  one  outlying  peak  of  granite,  carrying  up  a  shelf  of  slate 
upon  its  southern  flank,  has  risen  through  the  waves,  and  formed 
an  island  some  three  miles  long,  desolate,  flat-headed,  fretted  by 
every  frost  and  storm,  walled  all  round  with  four  hundred  feet 
of  granite  cliff,  sacred  only,  (then  at  least,)  to  puffins  and  to 
pirates.  Over  the  single  landing-place  frowns  from  the  cliff  the 
keep  of  an  old  ruin,  "  Moresco  Castle,"  as  they  call  it  still,  where 
some  bold  rover,  Sir  John  De  Moresco,  in  the  times  of  the  old 
Edwards,  worked  his  works  of  darkness  ;  a  gray,  weird,  uncanny 
pile  of  moorstone,  through  which  all  the  winds  of  heaven  howl 
day  and  night. 

In  a  chamber  of  that  ruin  died  Sir  Lewis  Stukely,  Lord  of 
Affton,  cursing  God  and  man. 


72  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

His  family  perished  out  of  Devon.  His  noble  name  is  now- 
absorbed  in  that  of  an  ancient  Virginian  merchant  of  Bideford  ; 
and  Affton,  burned  to  the  ground  a  few  years  after,  mouldered 
to  an  ivied  ruin,  on  whose  dark  arch  the  benighted  peasant  even 
now  looks  askance  as  on  an  evil  place,  and  remembers  the  tale 
of  "  the  wicked  Sir  Lewis,"  and  the  curse  which  fell  on  him  and 
on  his  house. 

These  things  are  true.  Said  we  not  well  that  reality  is 
stranger  than  romance  ? 

But  no  Nemesis  followed  James. 

The  answer  will  depend  much  upon  what  readers  consider  to 
be  a  Nemesis.  If  to  have  found  England  one  of  the  greatest 
countries  in  Europe,  and  to  have  left  it  one  of  the  most  incon 
siderable  and  despicable  ;  if  to  be  fooled  by  flatterers  to  the  top 
of  his  vent,  until  lie  fancied  himself  all  but  a  god,  while  he  was 
not  even  a  man,  and  could  neither  speak  the  truth,  keep  himself 
sober,  or  look  on  a  drawn  sword  without  shrinking ;  if,  lastly, 
to  have  left  behind  him  a  son  who,  in  spite  of  many  chivalrous 
instincts,  unknown  to  his  father,  had  been  so  indoctrinated  in  that 
father's  vices,  as  to  find  it  impossible  to  speak  the  truth  even 
when  it  served  his  purpose ;  if  all  these  things  be  no  Nemesis, 
then  none  fell  on  James  Stuart. 

But  of  that  son,  at  least,  the  innocent  blood  was  required. 
Pie,  too,  had  his  share  in  the  sin.  In  Carew  Raleigh's  simple 
and  manful  petition  to  the  Commons  of  England  for  the  restora 
tion  of  his  inheritance,  we  find  a  significant  fact,  stated  without 
one  word  of  comment,  bitter  or  otherwise.  At  Prince  Henry's 
death,  the  Sherborne  lands  had  been  given  again  to  Carr,  Lord 
Somerset.  To  him,  too,  "  the  whirligig  of  time  brought  round  its 
revenges,"  and  he  lost  them  when  arraigned  and  condemned  for 
poisoning  Sir  Thomas  Overbury.  Then  Sir  John  Digby,  after 
wards  Earl  of  Bristol,  begged  Sherborne  of  the  king,  and  had  it. 
Pembroke  (Shakspeare's  Pembroke)  brought  young  Carew  to 
Court,  hoping  to  move  the  tyrant's  heart.  James  saw  him  and 
shuddered  ;  perhaps  conscience-stricken,  perhaps  of  mere  cow 
ardice.  "  He  looked  like  the  ghost  of  his  father,"  as  he  well 
might,  to  that  guilty  soul.  Good  Pembroke  advised  his  young 
kinsman  to  travel,  which  he  did  till  James's  death  in  the  m-xt  year. 
Then  coming  over,  (this  is  his  own  story,)  he  asked  of  Parliament 
to  be  restored  in  blood,  that  he  might  inherit  aught  that  might 
fall  to  him  in  England.  His  petition  was  read  twice  in  the 
Lords.  Whereon  "  King  Charles  sent  Sir  James  Fullarton 
(then  of  the  bed-chamber)  to  Mr.  Raleigh,  to  command  him  to 
come  to  him ;  and  being  brought  in,  the  king,  after  using  him 
with  great  civility,  notwithstanding  told  him  plainly,  that  when 


SIR   WALTER  RALEIGH   AND   HIS   TIME.  73 

he  was  prince,  he  had  promised  the  Earl  of  Bristol  to  secure 
his  title  to  Sherborne  against  the  heirs  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  ; 
whereon  the  earl  had  given  him,  then  prince,  ten  thousand 
pounds ;  that  now  he  was  bound  to  make  good  his  promise, 
being  king  ;  that,  therefore,  unless  he  would  quit  his  right  and 
title  to  Sherborne,  he  neither  could  nor  would  pass  his  bill  of 
restoration." 

Young  Raleigh,  like  a  good  Englishman,  "  urged,"  he  says, 
"  the  justness  of  his  cause ;  that  he  desired  only  the  liberty  of 
the  subject,  and  to  be  left  to  the  law,  which  was  never  denied 
any  freeman."  The  king  remained  obstinate.  His  noble  broth 
er's  love  for  the  mighty  dead  weighed  nothing  with  him,  much 
less  justice.  Poor  young  Raleigh  was  forced  to  submit.  The 
act  for  his  restoration  was  past,  reserving  Sherborne  for  Lord 
Bristol,  and  Charles  patched  up  the  scoundrelly  affair  by  allow 
ing  to  Lady  Raleigh,  and  her  son  after  her,  a  life  pension  of  four 
hundred  a  year. 

Young  Carew  tells  his  story  simply,  and  without  a  note  of  bit 
terness  ;  though  he  professes  his  intent  to  range  himself  and  his 
two  sons  for  the  future  under  the  banner  of  the  Commons  of 
England,  he  may  be  a  royalist  for  any  word  beside.  Even  where 
he  mentions  the  awful  curse  of  his  mother,  he  only  alludes  to  its 
fulfilment  by — "  that  which  hath  happened  since  to  that  royal 
family,  is  too  sad  and  disastrous  for  me  to  repeat,  and  yet  too 
visible  not  to  be  discerned."  We  can  have  no  doubt  that  he  tells 
the  exact  truth.  Indeed  the  whole  story  fits  Charles's  character 
to  the  smallest  details.  The  want  of  any  real  sense  of  justice, 
combined  with  the  false  notion  of  honour  ;  the  implacable  ob 
stinacy  ;  the  contempt  for  that  law  by  which  alone  he  held  his 
crown  ;  the  combination  of  unkingly  meanness  in  commanding  a 
private  interview,  and  shamelessness  in  confessing  his  own  ras 
cality — all  these  are  true  notes  of  the  man  who  could  attempt  to 
imprison  the  five  members,  and  yet  organized  the  Irish  rebellion  ; 
who  gave  up  Stafford  and  Laud  to  death  as  his  scapegoats,  and 
yet  pretended  to  die  himself  a  martyr  for  that  episcopacy  which 
they  brave,  though  insane,  had  defended  to  death  long  before. 
But  he  must  have  been  a  rogue  early  in  life,  and  a  needy  rogue 
too.  That  ten  thousand  pounds  of  Lord  Bristol's  money  should 
make  many  a  sentimentalist  reconsider  (if,  indeed,  sentimentalists 
can  be  made  to  reconsider,  or  even  to  consider,  any  thing)  their 
notion  of  him  as  the  incarnation  of  pious  chivalry. 

At  least  the  ten  thousand  pounds  cost  Charles  dear.  The 
widow's  curse  followed  him  home.  Naseby  fight  and  the  White 
hall  scaffold  were  God's  judgment  of  such  deeds,  whatever  man's 
may  be. 


74  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 


PLAYS   AND   PURITANS. 

[North  British  Review.] 

THE  British  isles  have  been  ringing,  for  the  last  few  years, 
with  the  word  "  Art,"  in  its  German  sense,  with  "  High  Art," 
"  Symbolic  Art,"  "  Ecclesiastical  Art,"  "  Dramatic  Art,"  "  Tragic 
Art,"  and  so  forth  ;  and  every  well-educated  person  is  expected, 
now-a-days,  to  know  something  about  Art.  Meanwhile,  in  spite 
of  all  translations  of  German  "^Esthetic  "  treatises,  and  "  Kunst- 
novellen,"  the  mass  of  the  British  people  cares  very  little  about 
the  matter,  and  sits  contented  under  the  imputation  of  "  bad 
taste."  Our  stage,  long  since  dead,  does  not  revive ;  our  poetry 
is  dying ;  our  music,  like  our  architecture,  only  reproduces  the 
past ;  our  painting  is  only  good  when  it  handles  landscapes  and 
animals,  and  will  so  remain  unless  Mr.  Millais  succeed  in  raising 
up  some  higher  school :  but,  meanwhile,  nobody  cares.  Some 
of  the  deepest  and  most  earnest  minds  vote  the  question,  in 
general,  a  "  sham  and  a  snare,"  and  whisper  to  each  other  confi 
dentially,  that  Gothic  art  is  beginning  to  be  a  "  bore,"  and  that 
Sir  Christopher  Wren  was  a  very  good  fellow  after  all ;  while 
the  middle  classes  look  on  at  the  Art  movement  half  amused,  as 
with  a  pretty  toy,  half  sulkily  suspicious  of  Popery  and  Pagan 
ism  ;  and  think,  apparently,  that  Art  is  very  well  when  it  means 
nothing,  and  is  merely  used  to  beautify  drawing-rooms  and  shawl 
patterns;  not  to  mention  that  if  there  were  no  painters,  Mr.  Smith 
could  not  hand  down  to  posterity  likenesses  of  himself,  Mrs. 
Smith,  and  family.  But  when  "Art"  dares  to  be  in  earnest,  and 

1.  Works  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher.  2.  Works  of  Ben  Jonson.  3.  Massin- 
ger's  Plays.  Edited  by  WILLIAM  GIFFORD,  Esq.  4.  Works  of  John  Webster. 
Edited,  &c.,  by  Rev.  ALEXANDER  DYCE.  5.  Works  of  James  "Shirley.  Edited 
by  Rev.  A.  DYCE.  6.  Works  of  T.  Mddleton.  Edited  by  Rev.  A.  DYCE. 
7.  Comedies,  cj-c.  By  Mr.  WILLIAM  CARTWRIGHT.  8.  Specimens  of  English  Dra 
matic  Poets.  By  CHARLES  LAMB.  9.  Histriomastix.  By  W.  PRYNNE,  Utter- 
Barrister  of  Lincoln's  Inn.  10.  NortJibrooke's  Treatise  against  Plays,  cfc.  11. 
The  Works  of  Bishop  Hall.  12.  Marston's  Satires.  13.  Jeremy  Collier's  Short 
View  of  the  Profaneness,  <f'C.,  of  the  EngUtk  Stage.  14.  Lanybaine^s  English 
Dramatists.  15.  Companion  to  the  Playhouse.  16.  Riccoboni's  Account  of  the 
Theatres  in  Europe. 


PLAYS   AND   PURITANS.  75 

to  mean  something,  much  more  to  connect  itself  with  religion, 
Smith's  tone  alters.  He  will  teach  "Art"  to  keep  in  what  he 
considers  its  place,  and  if  it  refuses,  take  the  law  of  it,  and  put 
it  into  the  Ecclesiastical  Court.  So  he  says ;  and  what  is  more, 
he  means  what  he  says  ;  and  as  all  the  world,  from  Hindostan  to 
Canada,  knows  by  most  practical  proof,  what  he  means,  he  sooner 
or  later  does,  perhaps  not  always  in  the  wisest  way,  but  still  he 
does  it. 

Thus,  in  fact,  the  temper  of  the  British  nation  toward  "Art," 
is  simply  that  of  the  old  Puritans,  softened,  no  doubt,  and 
widened ;  but  only  enough  so  as  to  permit  Art,  not  to  encour 
age  it. 

Were  we  Germans,  our  thoughts  on  this  curious  fact  would 
probably  take  the  form  of  some  aesthetic  a  priori  disquisition, 
beginning  with  "  the  tendency  of  the  infinite  to  reveal  itself  in 
the  finite,"  and  ending — who  can  tell  where  ?  But  being  Britons, 
we  cannot  honestly  arrogate  to  ourselves,  as  our  German  broth 
ers  seem  so  fond  of  doing,  any  skill  in  the  scientia  scientiarum, 
or  say,  "  The  Lord  possessed  me  in  the  beginning  of  his  way, 
before  his  works  of  old.  When  he  prepared  the  heavens,  I 
was  there,  when  he  set  a  compass  upon  the  face  of  the  deep." 
Leaving,  therefore,  aesthetic  science  to  those  who  think  that  they 
comprehend  it,  we  will,  as  simple  disciples  of  Bacon,  deal  with 
facts,  and  with  history  as  "  the  will  of  God  revealed  in  facts." 
We  will  leave  those  who  choose  to  settle  what  ought  to  be,  and 
ourselves  look  patiently  at  that  which  actually  was  once,  and 
which  may  be  again  ;  that  so  out  of  the  conduct  of  our  old 
Puritan  forefathers,  (right  or  wrong,)  and  their  long  war  against 
"Art,"  we  may  learn  a  wholesome  lesson,  as  we  doubtless  shall, 
if  we  will  believe  firmly  that  our  history  is  neither  more  nor  less 
than  what  the  old  Hebrew  prophets  called  "  God's  gracious  deal 
ings  with  his  people,"  and  not  say  in  our  hearts,  like  some  senti 
mental  girl  who  sings  Jacobite  ballads,  (written  forty  years  ago  by 
men  who  cared  no  more  for  the  Stuarts  than  for  the  Ptolemies, 
and  were  ready  to  kiss  the  dust  off  George  the  Fourth's  feet  at 
his  visit  to  Edinburgh) — "  Victrix  causa  Deis  placuit,  sed  victa 
puellis." 

The  historian  of  a  time  of  change  has  always  a  difficult  and 
invidious  task.  For  revolutions,  in  the  great  majority  of  cases, 
arise,  not  merely  from  the  crimes  of  a  few  great  men,  but  from 
a  general  viciousness  and  decay  of  the  whole,  or  the  majority  of 
the  nation  ;  and  that  viciousness  is  certain  to  be  made  up,  in 
great  part,  of  a  loosening  of  domestic  ties,  of  breaches  of  the 
Seventh  Commandment,  and  of  sins  connected  with  them,  which 


76  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

a  writer  is  now  hardly  permitted  to  mention.  An  "  evil  and 
adulterous  generation "  has  been  in  all  ages  and  countries  the 
one  marked  out  for  intestine  and  internecine  strife.  That  descrip 
tion  is  always  applicable  to  a  revolutionary  generation,  whether 
or  not  it  also  comes  under  the  class  of  a  superstitious  one,  "  seek 
ing  after  a  sign  from  heaven,"  only  half  believing  its  own  creed, 
and,  therefore,  on  tiptoe  for  miraculous  confirmations  of  it  at  the 
same  time  that  it  fiercely  persecutes  any  one  who,  by  attempting 
innovation  or  reform,  seems  about  to  snatch  from  weak  faith  the 
last  plank  which  keeps  it  from  sinking  into  the  abyss.  In  de 
scribing  such  an  age,  the  historian  lies  under  this  paradoxical 
disadvantage,  that  his  case  is  actually  too  strong  for  him  to  state 
it.  If  he  tells  the  whole  truth,  the  easy-going  and  respectable 
multitude,  in  easy-going  and  respectable  days  like  these,  will 
either  shut  their  ears  prudishly  to  his  painful  facts,  or  reject  them 
as  incredible,  unaccustomed  as  they  are  to  find  similar  horrors 
and  abominations  among  people  of  their  own  rank,  of  whom 
they  are  naturally  inclined  to  judge  by  their  own  standard  of 
civilization.  Thus  if  any  one,  in  justification  of  the  Reformation, 
and  the  British  hatred  of  Popery  during  the  sixteenth  century, 
should  dare  to  detail  the,  undoubted  facts  of  the  Inquisition,  and 
to  comment  on  them  dramatically  enough  to  make  his  readers 
feel  about  them  what  men  who  witnessed  them  felt,  he  would  be 
accused  of  a  "  morbid  love  of  horrors."  If  any  one,  in  order  to 
show  how  the  French  Revolution  of  1793  was  really  God's  judg 
ment  on  the  profligacy  of  the  ancien  regime,  were  to  paint  that 
profligacy  as  the  men  of  the  ancien  regime  unblushingly  painted 
it  themselves,  respectability  would  have  a  right  to  demand,  "  How 
dare  you,  sir,  drag  such  disgusting  facts  from  their  merited  obli 
vion  ?"  Those,  again,  who  are  really  acquainted  with  the  history 
of  Henry  the  Eighth's  marriages,  are  well  aware  of  facts  which 
prove  him  to  have  been,  not  a  man  of  violent  and  lawless  pas 
sions,  but  of  a  cold  temperament  and  a  scrupulous  conscience ; 
but  they  cannot  be  stated  in  print,  save  in  the  most  delicate  and 
passing  hints,  which  will  be  taken  only  by  those  who  at  once 
understand  such  matters,  and  really  wish  to  know  the  truth ; 
while  young  ladies  in  general  will  still  look  on  Henry  as  the 
monster  in  human  form,  because  no  one  dares,  or  indeed  ought, 
to  undeceive  them  by  anything  beyond  bare  assertion  without 
proof. 

"  But  what  matter,"  some  one  may  say,  "  what  young  ladies 
think  about  history  ?  "  This  it  matters ;  that  these  young  ladies 
will  some  day  be  mothers,  and  as  such  will  teach  their  children 
their  own  notions  of  modern  history  ;  and  that,  as  long  as  men 
confine  themselves  to  the  teaching  of  Roman  and  Greek  history, 


PLAYS   AND  PURITANS.  77 

and  leave  the  history  of  their  own  country  to  be  handled  exclu 
sively  by  their  unmarried  sisters,  so  long  will  slanders,  super 
stitions,  and  false  political  principles  be  perpetuated  in  the  minds 
of  our  boys  and  girls. 

But  still  a  worse  evil  arises  from  the  fact  that  the  historian's  case 
is  often  too  strong  to  be  stated.  There  is  always  a  reactionary 
party,  or  one  at  least  which  lingers  sentimentally  over  the  dream 
of  past  golden  ages,  such  as  that  of  which  Cowley  says,  with  a 
sort  of  naive  blasphemy,  at  which  one  knows  not  whether  to  smile 
or  sigh, — 

"  When  God,  the  cause  to  me  and  men  unknown, 
Forsook  the  royal  houses,  and  his  own." 

These  have  full  liberty  to  say  all  that  they  can  in  praise  of  the 
defeated  system ;  but  the  historian  has  no  such  liberty  to  state 
the  case  against  it.  If  he  dare  even  to  assert  that  he  has  coun 
ter-facts,  but  dare  not  state  them,  he  is  at  once  met  with  a  prceju- 
dicium.  The  mere  fact  of  his  having  ascertained  the  truth  is 
imputed  as  a  blame  to  him,  in  a  sort  of  prudish  cant.  "  What  a 
very  improper  person  he  must  be  to  like  to  dabble  in  such  improper 
books  that  they  must  not  even  be  quoted."  If  in  self-defence  he 
desperately  gives  his  facts,  he  only  increases  the  feeling  against 
him,  whilst  the  reactionists,  hiding  their  blushing  faces,  find  in 
their  modesty  an  excuse  for  avoiding  the  truth ;  if,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  content  himself  with  bare  assertion,  and  indicating  the 
sources  from  whence  his  conclusions  are  drawn,  what  care  the 
reactionists  ?  They  know  well  that  the  public  will  not  take  the 
trouble  to  consult  manuscripts,  State  papers,  pamphlets,  rare 
biographies,  but  will  content  themselves  with  ready-made  history 
from  the  pen  of  Hume  or  Clarendon,  Fraser  Tytler,  or  Miss 
Strickland ;  and  they  therefore  go  on  unblushing  to  republish 
their  old  romance,  leaving  poor  truth,  after  she  has  been  painfully 
haled  up  to  the  well's  mouth,  to  tumble  miserably  to  the  bottom 
of  it  again. 

In  the  face  of  this  danger,  we  will  go  on  to  lay  as  much  as  we 
dare  of  the  great  cause,  Puritans  v.  Players,  before  our  readers, 
trusting  to  find  some  of  them  at  least  sufficiently  unacquainted 
with  the  common  notions  on  the  point,  to  form  a  fair  decision. 

What  those  notions  are,  is  well  known.  Very  many  of  her 
Majesty's  subjects  are  now  of  opinion  that  the  first  half  of  the 
Seventeenth  Century,  (if  the  Puritans  had  not  interfered  and 
spoilt  all,)  was  the  most  beautiful  period  of  the  English  nation's 
life ;  that  in  it  the  chivalry  and  ardent  piety  of  the  middle  age 


78  i       KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

were  happily  combined  with  modern  art  and  civilization ;  that 
the  Puritan  hatred  of  the  Court,  of  stage-plays,  of  the  fashions 
of  the  time,  was  only  a  scrupulous  and  fantastical  niceness,  bar 
baric  and  tasteless,  if  sincere ;  if  insincere,  the  basest  hypoc 
risy  ;  that  the  stage-plays,  though  coarse,  were  no  worse  than 
Shakspeare,  whom  everybody  reads ;  and  that  if  the  Stuarts 
patronized  the  stage  they  also  raised  it,  and  exercised  a  purify 
ing  censorship.  And  very  many  more  who  do  not  go  all  these 
lengths  with  the  reactionists,  and  cannot  make  up  their  mind  to 
look  to  the  Stuart  reign's  either  for  model  churchmen,  or  model 
landlords,  are  still  inclined  to  sneer  with  Walter  Scott  at  the 
Puritan  "  preciseness  ; "  and  to  say  lazily,  that  though,  of  course, 
something  may  have  been  wrong,  yet  there  was  no  need  to  make 
such  a  fuss  about  the  matter ;  and  that  at  all  events  the  Puritans 
were  men  of  very  bad  taste. 

Mr.  Gifford,  in  his  introduction  to  Massinger's  Plays,  (1813,) 
was  probably  the  spokesman  of  his  own  generation,  certainly  of  a 
great  part  of  this  generation  also,  when  he  informs  us,  that  "  with 
Massinger  terminated  the  triumph  of  dramatic  poetry  ;  indeed, 
the  stage  itself  survived  him  but  a  short  time.  The  nation  was 
convulsed  to  its  centre  by  contending  factions,  and  a  set  of  austere 
and  gloomy  fanatics,  enemies  to  every  elegant  amusement,  and 
every  social  relaxation,  rose  upon  the  ruins  of  the  State.  Exas 
perated  by  the  ridicule  with  which  they  had  long  been  covered 
by  the  stage,  they  persecuted  the  actors  with  unrelenting  severity, 
and  consigned  them,  together  with  the  writers,  to  hopeless  obscu 
rity  and  wretchedness.  Taylor  died  in  the  extreme  of  poverty, 
Shirley  opened  a  little  school  at  Brentford,  and  Downe,  the  boast 
of  the  stage,  kept  an  ale-house  at  Brentford.  Others,  and  those 
the  far  greater  number,  joined  the  royal  standard,  and  exerted 
themselves  with  more  gallantry  than  good  fortune  in  the  service 
of  their  old  and  indulgent  master. 

"  We  have  not  yet,  perhaps,  fully  estimated,  and  certainly  not  yet 
fully  recovered  what  was  lost  in  that  unfortunate  struggle.  The  arts 
were  rapidly  advancing  to  perfection  under  the  fostering  wing  of  a 
monarch  who  united  in  himself  taste  to  feel,  spirit  to  undertake,  and 
munificence  to  reward.  Architecture,  painting,  and  poetry,  were  by 
turns  the  objects  of  his  paternal  care.  Shakspeare  was  his  '  closet 
companion,'  Jonson  his  poet,  and  in  conjunction  with  Inigo  Jones,  his 
favoured  architect,  produced  those  magnificent  entertainments,"  &c. 


He  then  goes  on  to  account  for  the  supposed  sudden  fall  of 
dramatic  art  at  the  Restoration,  by  the  somewhat  far-fetched 
theory  that — 


PLAYS    AND    PURITANS.  79 

"  Such  was  the  horror  created  in  the  general  rnind  by  the  perverse 
and  unsocial  government  from  which  they  had  so  fortunately  escaped, 
that  the  people  appear  to  have  anxiously  avoided  all  retrospect,  and 
with  Prynne  and  Vicars,  to  have  lost  sight  of  Shakspeare  and  '  his 
fellows.'  Instead,  therefore,  of  taking  up  dramatic  poetry  where  it 
abruptly  ceased  in  the  labours  of  Massinger,  they  elicited,  as  it  were, 
a  manner  of  their  own,  or  fetched  it  from  the  heavy  monotony  of  their 
continental  neighbours." 

So  is  history  written,  and,  what  is  more,  believed.  The 
amount  of  misrepresentation  in  this  passage  (which  would  proba 
bly  pass  current  with  most  readers  in  the  present  day)  is  quite 
ludicrous.  In  tbe  first  place,  it  will  hardly  be  believed  that  these 
words  occur  in  an  essay,  which  after  extolling  Massinger  as  one 
of  the  greatest  poets  of  his  age,  second,  indeed,  only  to  Shakspeare, 
also  informs  us,  (and,  it  seems,  quite  truly,)  that  so  far  from  hav 
ing  been  really  appreciated  or  patronized,  he  maintained  a  con 
stant  struggle  with  adversity, — "  that  even  the  bounty  of  his 
particular  friends,  on  which  he  chiefly  relied,  left  him  in  a  state 
of  absolute  dependence," — that  while  "  other  writers  for  the  stage 
had  their  periods  of  good  fortune,  Massinger  seems  to  have 
enjoyed  no  gleam  of  sunshine ;  his  life  was  all  one  misty  day, 
and  '  shadows,  clouds,  and  darkness  rested  on  it.' " 

So  much  for  Charles's  patronage  of  a  really  great  poet.  What 
sort  of  men  he  did  patronize,  practically  and  in  earnest,  we  shall 
see  hereafter,  when  we  come  to  speak  of  Mr.  Shirley. 

But  Mr.  Gifford  must  needs  give  an  instance  to  prove  that 
Charles  was  "  not  inattentive  to  the  success  of  Massinger,"  and 
a  curious  one  it  is  ;  of  the  same  class,  unfortunately,  as  that  with 
the  man  in  the  old  story,  who  recorded  with  pride  that  the  King 
had  spoken  to  him,  and — had  told  him  to  get  out  of  the  way. 

Massinger,  in  his  King  and  the  Subject  had  introduced  Don 
Pedro  of  Spain  thus  speaking — 

"  Moneys !  We'll  raise  supplies  which  way  we  please, 
And  force  you  to  subscribe  to  blanks,  in  which 
We'll  mulct  you  as  we  shall  think  fit.     The  Caesars 
In  Rome  were  wise,  acknowledging  no  law 
But  what  their  swords  did  ratify,  the  wives 
And  daughters  of  the  senators  bowing  to 
Their  will,  as  deities,"  &c. 

Against  which  passage,  Charles,  reading  over  the  play  before  he 
allowed  of  it,  had  written,  "  This  is  too  insolent,  and  not  to  be 
printed."  Too  insolent  it  certainly  was,  considering  the  state  of 
public  matters  in  the  year  1638.  It  would  be  interesting  enough 
to  analyze  the  reasons  which  made  Charles  dislike  in  the  mouth 
of  Pedro  sentiments  so  very  like  his  own  ;  but  we  must  proceed, 
only  pointing  out  the  way  in  which  men  determined  to  repeat  the 


80  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

traditional  clap-trap  about  the  Stuarts,  are  actually  blind  to  the 
meaning  of  the  very  facts  which  they  themselves  quote. 

Where,  then,  do  the  facts  of  history  contradict  Mr.  Gifford  ? 

We  believe,  that  so  far  from  the  triumph  of  dramatic  poetry 
terminating  with  Massinger,  dramatic  art  had  been  steadily  grow 
ing  worse  from  the  first  years  of  James  ;  that  instead  of  the  arts 
advancing  to  perfection  under  Charles  the  First,  they  steadily 
deteriorated  in  quality,  though  the  supply  became  more  abun 
dant  ;  that  so  far  from  there  having  been  a  sudden  change  for  the 
worse  in  the  drama  after  the  Restoration,  the  taste  of  Charles 
the  First's  and  of  Charles  the  Second's  court,  are  indistinguish 
able  ;  that  the  court  poets,  and  probably  the  actors,  also,  of  the 
early  part  of  Charles  the  Second's  reign,  had  many  of  them 
belonged  to  the  Court  of  Charles  the  First,  as  did  Davenant,  the 
Duke  and  Duchess  of  Newcastle,  Fanshaw,  and  Shirley  himself; 
that  the  common  notion  of  a  "  new  manner "  having  been  intro 
duced  from  France,  after  the  Restoration,  or,  indeed,  having  come 
in  at  all,  is  not  founded  on  fact,  the  only  change  being  that  the 
plays  of  Charles  the  Second's  time  were  somewhat  more  stupid, 
and  that  while  five  of  the  seven  deadly  sins  had  always  had  free 
license  on  the  stage,  blasphemy  and  profane  swearing  were  now 
enfranchised  to  fill  up  the  seven.  As  for  the  assertion  that  the 
new  manner  (supposing  it  to  have  existed)  was  imported  from 
France,  there  is  far  more  reason  to  believe  that  the  French 
copied  us  than  we  them,  and  that,  if  they  did  not  learn  from 
Charles  the  First's  poets  the  superstition  of  "  the  three  unities," 
they  at  least  learnt  to  make  ancient  kings  and  heroes  talk  and 
act  like  seventeenth  century  courtiers,  and  to  exchange  their  old 
clumsy  masques  and  translations  of  Italian  and  Spanish  farces 
for  a  comedy  depicting  native  scoundrelisrn.  Probably  enough, 
indeed,  the  great  and  sudden  development  of  the  French  stage, 
which  took  place  between  1650  and  1660,  under  Corneille  and 
Moliere,  was  excited  by  the  English  cavalier  playwrights  who 
took  refuge  in  France. 

No  doubt,  as  Mr.  Gifford  says,  the  Puritans  were  exasperated 
against  the  stage-players  by  the  insults  heaped  on  them  ;  but  the 
cause  of  quarrel  lay  far  deeper  than  any  such  personal  sore 
ness.  The  Puritans  had  attacked  the  players  before  the  players 
meddled  with  them,  and  that  on  principle,  with  what  justification 
must  be  considered  hereafter.  But  the  fact  is,  (and  this  seems 
to  have  been,  like  many  other  facts,  conveniently  forgotten,)  that 
the  Puritans  were  by  no  means  alone  in  their  protest  against  the 
stage,  and  that  the  war  was  not  begun  exclusively  by  them.  As 
early  as  the  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  not  merely 
Northbrooke,  Gosson,  Stubs,  and  Reynolds,  had  lifted  up  their 


PLAYS    AND    PURITANS.  gj 

voices  against  them,  but  Archbishop  Parker,  Bishop  Babington, 
Bishop  Hall,  and  the  author  of  the  Mirror  for  Magistrates. 
The  University  of  Oxford,  in  1584,  had  passed  a  statute  forbid 
ding  common  plays  and  players  in  the  university,  on  the  very 
same  moral  grounds  on  which  the  Puritans  objected  to  them. 
The  city  of  London,  in  1580,  had  obtained  from  the  queen  the 
suppression  of  plays  on  Sunday,  and  not  long  after,  "  considering 
that  play-houses  and  dicing-houses  were  traps  for  young  gentle 
men  and  others,"  obtained  leave  from  the  queen  and  privy-coun 
cil  to  thrust  the  players  out  of  the  city,  and  to  pull  down  the 
play-houses,  five  in  number ;  and,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem, 
there  is  little  doubt  that,  by  the  letter  of  the  law,  "  stage-plays 
and  interludes  "  were,  even  to  the  end  of  Charles  the  First's 
reign,  "unlawful  pastime,"  being  forbidden  by  14  Eliz.,  39  Eliz., 
1  Jacobi,  3  Jacobi,  and  1  Caroli,  and  the  players  subject  to  severe 
punishment  as  "rogues  and  vagabonds."  The  Act  of  1  Jacobi 
seems  even  to  have  gone  so  far  as  to  repeal  the  clauses  which,  in 
Elizabeth's  reign,  had  allowed  companies  of  players  the  protec 
tion  of  a  "  baron  or  honourable  person  of  greater  degree,"  who 
might  "  authorize  them  to  play  under  his  hand  and  seal  of  arms." 
So  that  the  Puritans  were  only  demanding  of  the  sovereigns  that 
they  should  enforce  the  very  laws  which  they  themselves  had 
made,  and  which  they  and  their  nobles  were  setting  at  defiance. 
Whether  the  plays  ought  to  have  been  put  down,  and  whether 
the  laws  were  necessary,  are  different  questions ;  but  certainly 
the  court  and  the  aristocracy  stood  in  the  questionable,  though 
too  common,  position  of  men  who  made  laws  to  prohibit  to  the 
poor  amusements  in  which  they  themselves  indulged  without 
restraint. 

But  were  these  plays  objectionable  ?  As  far  as  the  comedies 
are  concerned,  that  will  depend  on  the  answer  to  the  question, 
Are  plays  objectionable,  the  staple  subject  of  which  is  adultery  ? 
Now,  we  cannot  but  agree  with  the  Puritans,  that  adultery  is  not 
a  subject  for  comedy  at  all.  It  may  be  for  tragedy ;  but  for 
comedy  never.  It  is  a  sin  ;  not  merely  theologically,  but  so 
cially,  one  of  the  'very  worst  sins,  the  parent  of  seven  other 
sins — of  falsehood,  suspicion,  hate,  murder,  and  a  whole  bevy  of 
devils.  The  prevalence  of  adultery  in  any  country  has  always 
been  a  sign  and  a  cause  of  social  insincerity,  division,  and  revo 
lution  ;  and  where  a  people  has  learnt  to  connive  and  laugh  at 
it,  and  to  treat  it  as  a  light  thing,  that  people  has  been  always 
careless,  base,  selfish,  cowardly — ripe  for  slavery.  And  we  must 
say,  that  either  the  courtiers  and  Londoners  of  James  and  Charles 
the  First  were  in  that  state,  or  that  the  poets  were  doing  their 
best  to  make  them  so. 
4* 


82  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

We  shall  not  shock  our  readers  by  any  disgusting  details  on 
this  point ;  we  shall  only  say,  that  there  is  hardly  a  comedy  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  with  the  exception  of  Shakspeare's,  in 
which  adultery  is  not  introduced  as  a  subject  of  laughter,  and 
often  made  the  staple  of  the  whole  plot.  The  seducer  is,  if  not 
openly  applauded,  at  least  let  to  pass  as  a  "  handsome  gentle 
man;"  the  injured  husband  is,  as  in  that  Italian  literature  of 
which  we  shall  speak  shortly,  the  object  of  every  kind  of  scorn 
and  ridicule.  In  this  latter  habit  (common  to  most  European 
nations)  there  is  a  sort  of  justice.  A  man  can  generally  retain 
his  wife's  affections  if  he  will  behave  himself  like  a  man,  and 
"  injured  husbands  "  have  for  the  most  part  no  one  to  blame  but 
themselves.  But  the  matter  is  not  a  subject  for  comedy ;  not 
even  in  that  case  which  has  been  always  too  common  in  France, 
Italy,  and  the  Romish  countries,  and  which  seems  to  have  been 
painfully  common  in  England  in  the  seventeenth  century,  when, 
by  a  marriage  de  convenance,  a  young  girl  is  married  up  to  a 
rich  idiot  or  a  decrepit  old  man.  Such  things  are  not  comedies, 
but  tragedies  ;  subjects  for  pity  and  for  silence,  not  for  brutal 
ribaldry.  And  the  men  who  look  on  them  in  the  light  which 
the  Stuart  dramatists  did  are  not  good  men,  and  do  no  good  ser 
vice  to  the  country,  especially  when  they  erect  adultery  into  a 
science,  and  seem  to  take  a  perverse  pleasure  in  teaching  their 
audience  every  possible  method,  accident,  cause,  and  consequence 
of  it ;  always,  too,  when  they  have  an  opportunity,  pointing 
"  Eastward,  Ho  !  "  i.  e.  to  the  city  of  London,  as  the  quarter 
where  court  gallants  can  find  boundless  indulgence  for  their  pas 
sions,  amid  the  fair  wives  of  dull  and  cowardly  citizens.  If  the 
citizens  drove  the  players  out  of  London,  the  play-wrights  took 
good  care  to  have  their  revenge.  The  citizen  is  their  standard 
butt.  These  shallow  parasites,  and  their  shallower  sovereigns, 
seem  to  have  taken  a  perverse,  and,  as  it  happened,  a  fatal 
pleasure,  in  insulting  them.  Sad  it  is  to  see  in  Shirley's  .Game 
ster,  Charles  the  First's  favourite  play,  a  passage  like  that  in 
Act  I.  Scene  1,  where  old  Barnacle  proclaims,  unblushing,  his 
own  shame  and  that  of  his  fellow-merchants.  Surely,  if  Charles 
ever  could  have  repented  of  any  act  of  his  own,  he  must  have 
repented,  in  many  a  humiliating  after-passage  with  that  same 
city  of  London,  of  having  given  those  base  words  his  royal  war 
rant  and  approbation. 

The  tragedies  of  the  seventeenth  century  are,  on  the  whole,  as 
questionable  as  the  comedies.  That  there  are  noble  plays  among 
them  here  and  there,  no  one  denies — no  more  than  that  there  are  ex 
quisitely  amusing  plays  among  the  comedies  ;  but  as  the  staple  in 
terest  of  the  comedies  is  dulness,  so  the  staple  interest  of  the  trage- 


PLAYS    AND    PURITANS.  83 

dies  is  crime.  Revenge,  hatred,  villainy,  incest,  and  murder  upon 
murder,  are  the  constant  themes,  and  (with  the  exception  of  Shak- 
speare,  Ben  Jonson  in  his  earlier  plays,  and  perhaps  Massinger) 
they  handle  these  horrors  with  little  or  no  moral  purpose,  save 
that  of  exciting  aud  amusing  the  audience,  and  of  displaying 
their  own  power  of  delineation,  in  a  way  which  makes  one  but 
too  ready  to  believe  the  accusations  of  the  Puritans,  (supported 
as  they  are  by  many  painful  anecdotes,)  that  the  play-writers 
and  actors  were  mostly  men  of  fierce  and  reckless  lives,  who 
had  but  too  practical  an  acquaintance  with  the  dark  passions 
which  they  sketch.  This  is  notoriously  the  case  with  most  of 
the  French  novelists  of  the  modern  "  Literature  of  Horror,"  and 
the  two  literatures  are  morally  identical.  We  do  not  know  of  a 
complaint  which  can  be  justly  brought  against  the  School  of  Vic 
tor  Hugo  and  Dumas,  which  will  not  equally  apply  to  the  aver 
age  tragedy  of  the  whole  period  preceding  the  civil  wars. 

This  public  appetite  for  horrors,  for  which  they  catered  so 
greedily,  tempted  them  toward  another  mistake,  which  brought 
upon  them  (and  not  undeservedly)  heavy  odium. 

One  of  the  worst  counts  against  Dramatic  Art,  (as  well  as 
against  Pictorial,)  was  the  simple  fact  that  it  came  from  Italy. 
We  must  fairly  put  ourselves  into  the  position  of  an  honest  Eng 
lishman  of  the  seventeenth  century,  before  we  can  appreciate  the 
huge  prcBJudicium  which  must  needs  arise  in  his  mind  against 
any  thing  which  could  claim  a  Transalpine  parentage.  Italy  was 
then  not  merely  the  stronghold  of  Popery,  though  that  in  itself 
would  have  been  a  fair  reason  for  any  man's  saying,  "  If  the 
root  be  corrupt,  the  fruit  will  be  also  ;  any  expression  of  Italian 
thought  and  feeling  must  be  probably  unwholesome,  while  her 
vitals  are  being  eaten  out  by  an  abominable  falsehood,  only  half 
believed  by  the  masses,  and  not  believed  at  all  by  the  higher 
classes  even  of  the  priesthood,  but  only  kept  up  for  their  private 
aggrandizement."  But  there  was  more  than  hypothesis  in  favour 
of  the  man  who  might  say  this  ;  there  was  universal,  notorious, 
shocking  fact.  It  was  a  fact  that  Italy  was  the  centre  where  sins 
were  invented  worthy  of  the  doom  of  the  Cities  of  the  Plain,  and 
from  whence  they  spread  to  all  nations  who  had  connection  with 
her.  We  dare  give  no  proof  of  this  assertion.  The  Italian 
morals  and  the  Italian  lighter  literature  of  the  sixteenth  and  of 
the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century  were  such,  that  one  is 
almost  ashamed  to  confess  that  one  has  looked  into  them,  although 
the  painful  task  is  absolutely  necessary  for  one  who  wishes  to 
understand  either  the  European  society  of  the  time,  or  the  Puri 
tan  hatred  of  the  drama  :  Non  ragionam  di  lor :  ma  guarda  e 
passa. 


84  KINGSLEY'S    MISCELLANIES. 

It  is  equally  a  fact,  that  these  vices  were  imported  into  Eng 
land  by  the  young  men  who,  under  pretence  of  learning  the 
Italian  polish,  travelled  to  Italy.  From  the  days  of  Gabriel 
Harvey  and  Lord  Oxford,  about  the  middle  of  Elizabeth's  reign, 
this  foul  tide  had  begun  to  set  toward  England,  gaining  an  addi 
tional  coarseness  and  frivolity  in  passing  through  the  French 
Court  (then  an  utter  Gehenna)  in  its  course  hitherward  ;  till,  to 
judge  by  Marston's  satires,  certain  members  of  the  higher  classes 
had,  by  the  beginning  of  James's  reign,  learnt  nearly  all  which 
the  Italians  had  to  teach  them.  Marston  writes  in  a  rage,  it  is 
true — foaming,  stamping,  and  vapouring  too  much  to  escape  the 
suspicion  of  exaggeration ;  yet  he  dared  not  have  published  the 
things  which  he  does,  had  he  not  fair  ground  for  some  at  least  of 
his  assertions.  And  Marston,  be  it  remembered,  was  no  Puritan, 
but  a  play-wright,  and  Ben  Jonson's  friend. 

Bishop  Hall,  in  his  Satires,  described  things  as  bad  enough, 
though  not  so  bad  as  Marston  does ;  but  what  is  even  more  to 
the  purpose,  he  wrote  and  dedicated  to  James,  a  long  dissuasive 
against  the  fashion  of  running  abroad.  Whatever  may  be  thought 
of  the  arguments  of  "  Quo  vadis,  or  a  Censure  of  Travel"  its 
main  drift  is  clear  enough.  Young  gentlemen,  by  going  to  Italy, 
learnt  to  be  fops  and  profligates,  and  probably  Papists  into  the 
bargain.  These  assertions  there  is  no  denying.  Since  the  days 
of  Lord  Oxford,  most  of  the  ridiculous  and  expensive  fashions  in 
dress  had  come  from  Italy,  as  well  as  the  newest  modes  of  sin ; 
and  the  play-wrights  themselves  make  no  secret  of  the  fact. 
There  is  no  need  to  quote  instances ;  they  are  innumerable,  and 
the  stronger  ones  are  not  fit  to  be  quoted,  any  more  than  the 
titles  of  the  plays  in  which  they  occur ;  but  justifying  almost 
every  line  of  Bishop  Hall's  fierce  questions,  (of  which  some  of 
the  strongest  expressions  have  necessarily  been  omitted,) — 

"  What  mischief  have  we  among  us  which  we  have  not  borrowed  ? 

"  To  begin  at  our  skin  :  who  knows  not  whence  we  had  the  variety 
of  our  vain  disguises  ?  As  if  we  had  not  wit  enough  to  be  foolish  un 
less  we  were  taught  it.  These  dresses  being  constant  in  their  muta 
bility,  show  us  our  masters.  What  is  it  that  we  have  not  learned  of 
our  neighbours,  save  only  to  be  proud  good-cheap  ?  whom  would  it 
not  vex,  to  see  how  that  the  other  sex  hath  learned  to  make  anticks 
and  monsters  of  themselves  ?  AVhence  come  their"  (absurd  fashions)  ; 
"  but  the  one  from  some  ill-shaped  dame  of  France,  the  other  from 
the  worse-minded  courtezans  of  Italy  ?  Whence  else  learned  they  to 
daub  these  mud-walls  with  apothecaries'  mortar ;  and  those  high 
washes,  which  are  so  cunningly  licked  on,  that  the  wet  napkin  of 
Phryue  should  be  deceived  ?  Whence  the  frizzled  and  powdered 
bushes  of  their  borrowed  excrement  ?  As  if  they  were  ashamed  of 
the  head  of  God's  making,  and  proud  of  the  tire-woman's.  Where 


PLAYS    AND    PURITANS.  g/j 

learned  we  that  devilish  art  and  practice  of  duel,  wherein  men  seek 
honour  in  blood,  and  are  taught  the  ambition  of  being  glorious  butch 
ers  of  men  ?  Where  had  we  that  luxurious  delicacy  in  our  feasts,  in 
which  the  nose  is  no  less  pleased  than  the  palate,  and  the  eye  no  less 
than  either  ?  wherein  the  piles  of  dishes  make  barricadoes  against  the 
appetite,  and  with  a  pleasing  incumbrance  trouble  a  hungry  guest. 
Where  those  forms  of  ceremonious  quaffing,  in  which  men  have  learned 
to  make  gods  of  others  and  beasts  of  themselves,  and  lose  their  reason 
while  they  pretend  to  do  reason  ?  Where  the  lawlessness  (miscalled 
freedom)  of  a  wild  tongue,  that  runs,  with  reins  in  the  neck,  through 
the  bed-chambers  of  princes,  their  closets,  their  council  tables,  and 
spares  not  the  very  cabinet  of  their  breasts,  much  less  can  be  barred 
out  of  the  most  retired  secrecy  of  inferior  greatness  ?  Where,  the 
change  of  noble  attendance  and  hospitality  into  four  wheels  and  some 
few  butterflies  ?  Where,  the  art  of  dishonesty  in  practical  Machia- 
velism,  in  false  equivocations  ?  Where,  the  slight  account  of  that 
filthiness,  which  is  but  condemned  as  venial,  and  tolerated  as  not 
unnecessary  ?  Where,  the  skill  of  civil  and  honourable  hypocrisy,  in 
those  formal  compliments,  which  do  neither  expect  belief  from  others, 
nor  carry  any  from  ourselves  ?  Where,"  (and  here  Bishop  Hall 
begins  to  speak  concerning  things  on  which  we  must  be  silent,  as  of 
matters  notorious  and  undeniable.)  "  Where,  that  close  Atheism, 
which  secretly  laughs  God  in  the  face,  and  thinks  it  weakness  to 
believe,  wisdom  to  profess  any  religion  ?  Where,  the  bloody  and 
tragical  science  of  king-killing,  the  new  divinity  of  disobedience  and 
rebellion  ?  with  too  many  other  evils,  wherewith  foreign  conversa 
tion  hath  endangered  the  infection  of  our  peace  ?  " — Bishop  Hall's 
Quo  Vadis,  or  a  Censure  of  Travel,  vol.  xii.  sect.  22. 

Add  to  these  a  third  plain  fact,  that  Italy  was  the  mother- 
country  of  the  drama,  where  it  had  thriven  with  wonderful  fer 
tility,  ever  since  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century.  How 
ever  much  truth  there  may  be  in  the  common  assertion,  that  the 
old  "  miracle  plays"  and  ''mysteries"  were  the  parents  of  the 
English  drama,  (as  they  certainly  were  of  the  Spanish  and  the 
Italian,)  we  have  yet  to  learn  how  much  our  stage  owed,  from  its 
first  rise  under  Elizabeth,  to  direct  importations  from  Italy. 
This  is  merely  thrown  out  as  a  suggestion  ;  to  establish  the  fact 
would  require  a  wide  acquaintance  with  the  early  Italian  drama ; 
meanwhile,  let  two  patent  facts  have  their  due  weight.  The 
names  of  the  characters  in  most  of  our  early  regular  comedies 
are  Italian  ;  so  are  the  scenes,  and  so,  one  hopes,  are  the  man 
ners  ;  at  least  they  profess  to  be  so.  Next,  the  plots  of  many  of 
the  dramas  are  notoriously  taken  from  the  Italian  novelists  ;  and 
if  Shakspeare  (who  had  a  truly  divine  instinct  for  finding  honey 
where  others  found  poison,)  went  to  Cinthio  for  Othello  and 
Measure  for  Measure,  to  Bandello  for  Romeo  and  Juliet,  and  to 
Boccaccio  for  Cymbeline,  there  were  plenty  of  other  playwrights 


• 
86  KINGSLEY'S    MISCELLANIES. 

who  would  go  to  the  same  sources  for  worse  matter,  or  at  least, 
catch  from  these  profligate  writers  somewhat  of  their  Italian 
morality,  which  exalts  adultery  into  a  virtue,  seduction  into  a 
science,  and  revenge  into  a  duty  ;  which  revels  in  the  horrible 
as  freely  as  any  French  novelist  of  the  romantic  school ;  and 
wrhose  only  value  is  its  pitiless  exposure  of  the  profligacy  of  the 
Romish  priesthood  :  if  an  exposure  can  be  valuable  which  makes 
a  mock  equally  of  things  truly  and  falsely  sacred,  and  leaves  on 
the  reader's  mind  the  fear  that  the  writer  saw  nothing  in  heaven 
or  earth  worthy  of  belief,  respect,  or  self-sacrifice,  save  personal 
enjoyment. 

Now  this  is  the  morality  of  the  Italian  novelists  ;  and  to  judge 
from  their  vivid  sketches,  (which,  they  do  not  scruple  to  assert, 
were  drawn  from  life,  and  for  which  they  unblushingly  give 
names,  places,  and  all  details  which  might  amuse  the  noble  gen 
tlemen  and  ladies  to  whom  the  stories  are  dedicated,)  this  had 
been  the  morality  of  Italy  for  some  centuries  past.  This,  also, 
is  the  general  morality  of  the  English  stage  in  the  seventeenth 
century.  Can  we  wonder  that  thinking  men  should  have  seen 
a  connection  between  Italy  and  the  stage  ?  Certainly  the  play 
wrights  put  themselves  between  the  horns  of  an  ugly  dilemma. 
Either  the  vices  which  they  depicted  were  those  of  general 
English  society,  and  of  themselves  also,  (for  they  lived  in  the 
very  heart  of  town  and  court  foppery,)  or  else  they  were 
the  vices  of  a  foreign  country,  with  which  the  English  were  com 
paratively  unacquainted.  In  the  first  case,  we  can  only  say,  that 
the  Stuart  age  in  England  was  one  which  deserved  purgation  of 
the  most  terrible  kind,  and  to  get  rid  of  which  the  severest  and 
most  abnormal  measures  would  have  been  not  only  justifiable, 
but,  to  judge  by  the  experience  of  all  history,  necessary  ;  for 
extraordinary  diseases  never  have  been,  and  never  will  be,  eradi 
cated  save  by  extraordinary  medicines.  In  the  second  case,  the 
playwrights  were  wantonly  defiling  the  minds  of  the  people,  and 
instead  of  "  holding  up  a  mirror  to  vice,"  instructing  frail  virtue 
in  vices  which  she  had  not  learned,  and  fully  justifying  old 
Prynne's  indignant  complaint : — 

"  The  acting  of  foreign,  obsolete,  and  long  since  forgotten  villainies, 
on  the  stage,  is  so  far  from  working  a  detestation  of  them  in  the  spec 
tators'  minds,  (who,  perchance,  were  utterly  ignorant  of  them,  till  they 
were  acquainted  with  them  at  the  playhouse,  and  so  needed  no  de- 
hortatioii  from  them,)  that  it  often  excites  degenerous  dunghill  spirits, 
who  have  nothing  in  them  for  to  make  them  eminent,  to  reduce  them 
into  practice,  of  purpose  to  perpetuate  their  spurious  ill-serving  mem 
ories  to  posterity,  least- wise  in  some  tragic  interlude." 


PLAYS    AND    PURITANS.  87 

That  Prynne  spoke  herein  nought  but  sober  sense,  our  own 
police  reports  will  sufficiently  prove.  It  is  notorious  that  the 
representation,  in  our  own  days,  of  Tom  and  Jerry  and  of  Jack 
Sheppard,  did  excite  dozens  of  young  lads  to  imitate  the  scoun 
drel  heroes  of  those  base  dramas ;  and  such  must  have  been  the 
effect  of  similar  and  worse  representations  in  the  Stuart  age. 
No  rational  man  will  need  the  authority  of  Bishop  Babington, 
Doctor  Layton,  Archbishop  Parker,  Purchas,  Sparkes,  Reynolds, 
White, or  any  one  else,  Churchman  or  Puritan,  prelate  or  "peni 
tent  reclaimed  play-poet "  like  Stephen  Gosson,  to  convince  him. 
that,  as  they  assert,  citizens'  wives,  (who  are  generally  repre 
sented  as  the  proper  subjects  for  seduction,)  *  have,  even  on 
their  death-beds,  with  tears  confest  that  they  have  received,  at 
these  spectacles,  such  evil  infections  as  have  turned  their  minds 
from  chaste  cogitations,  and  made  them,  of  honest  women,  light 
hus-wives ;  .  .  .  .  have  brought  their  husbands  into  contempt, 
their  children  into  question,  ....  and  their  souls  into  the 
assault  of  a  dangerous  state  ;  or  that  "  The  devices  of  carrying 
and  recarrying  letters  by  laundresses,  practising  with  peddlers  to 
transport  their  tokens  by  colorable  means  to  sell  their  merchan 
dise,  and  other  kinds  of  policies  to  beguile  fathers  of  their  chil 
dren,  husbands  of  their  wives,  guardians  of  their  wards,  and 
masters  of  their  servants,  were  aptly  taught  in  these  schools  of 
abuse  ?  " 

The  matter  is  simple  enough.  We  should  not  allow  these 
plays  to  be  acted  in  our  own  day  because  we  know  that  they 
would  produce  their  effects.  We  should  call  him  a  madman 
who  allowed  his  daughters  or  his  servants  to  see  such  represen 
tations.  Why,  in  all  fairness,  were  the  Puritans  wrong  in  con 
demning  that  which  we  now  have  absolutely  forbidden  ? 

We  will  go  no  further  into  the  sickening  details  of  the  licen 
tiousness  of  the  old  playhouses.  Gosson,  and  his  colleague  the 
anonymous  Penitent,  assert  them,  as  does  Prynne,  to  have  been 
not  only  schools  but  ante-chambers  to  houses  of  a  worse  kind, 
and  that  the  lessons  learned  in  the  pit  were  only  not  practised 
also  in  the  pit.  What  reason  have  we  to  doubt  it,  who  know  that 
till  Mr.  Macready  commenced  a  practical  reformation  of  this 
abuse,  for  which  his  name  will  be  ever  respected,  our  own  com 
paratively  purified  stage  was  just  the  same  ?  Let  any  one  who 
remembers  the  saloons  of  Drury  Lane  and  Covent  Garden 
thirty  years  ago  judge  for  himself  what  the  accessories  of  the 
Globe  or  the  Fortune  must  have  been,  in  days  when  players 

*  The  Third  Blast,  of  Retreat  from  Plays  and  Theatres.     Penned  by  a  Play- 
poet. 


88  KINGSLEY'S    MISCELLANIES. 

were  allowed   to  talk  inside,   as   freely  as  the   public  behaved 
outside. 

Not  that  the  poets  or  the  players  had  any  conscious  intention 
of  demoralizing  their  hearers,  any  more  than  they  had  of  cor 
recting  them.  We  will  lay  on  them  the  blame  of  no  special 
malus  animus ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  we  must  treat  their  fine 
words  about  "  holding  a  mirror  up  to  vice,"  and  "  showing  the 
age  its  own  deformity,"  as  mere  cant,  which  the  men  themselves 
must  have  spoken  tongue  in  cheek.  It  was  as  much  an  insin 
cere  cant  in  those  days  as  it  was  when,  two  generations  later, 
Jeremy  Collier  exposed  its  impudent  falsehood  in  the  mouth  of 
Congreve.  If  the  poets  had  really  intended  to  show  vice  its 
own  deformity  they  would  have  represented  it,  (as  Shakspeare 
always  does,)  as  punished,  and  not  as  triumphant.  It  is  ridicu 
lous  to  talk  of  moral  purpose  in  works  in  which  there  is  no  moral 
justice.  The  only  condition  which  can  excuse  the  representation 
of  evil  is  omitted.  The  simple  fact  is,  that  the  poets  wanted  to 
draw  a  house  ;  that  this  could  most  easily  be  done  by  the  coarsest 
and  most  violent  means,  and  that,  not  being  able  to  find  stories 
exciting  enough,  from  their  foulness  or  horror,  in  the  past  records 
of  sober  British  society,  they  went  to  Italy  and  Spain  for  the 
violent  passions  and  wild  crimes  of  southern  temperaments,  ex 
cited,  and  yet  left  lawless,  by  a  superstition  believed  in  enough 
to  darken  and  brutalize,  but  not  enough  to  control  its  victims. 
Romish  countries,  then  as  now,  furnished  that  strange  mixture 
of  inward  savagery  with  outward  civilization,  which  is  the  im 
moral  playwright's  fittest  material,  because,  while  the  inward 
savagery  moves  the  passions  of  the  audience,  the  outward  civili 
zation  brings  the  character  near  enough  to  them  to  give  them  a 
likeness  of  themselves  in  their  worst  moments,  which  no  Mys 
tery  of  Cain  and  Abel,  or  Tragedy  of  Oronooko,  can  do. 

Does  this  seem  too  severe  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  value  the 
drama  for  its  lessons  in  human  nature  ?  On  that  especial  point 
something  must  be  said  hereafter.  Meanwhile  hear  one  of  the 
sixteenth  century  poets ;  one  who  cannot  be  suspected  of  any 
leaning  toward  Puritanism ;  one  who  had  as  high  notions  of  his 
vocation  as  any  man ;  and  one  who  so  far  fulfilled  those  notions 
as  to  become  a  dramatist  inferior  only  to  Shakspeare.  Let  Ben 
Jonson  himself  speak,  and  in  his  preface  to  Volpone,  tell  us, 
in  his  own  noble  prose,  what  he  thought  of  the  average  morality 
of  his  contemporary  playwrights  : — 

"  For  if  men  will  impartially  and  not  asquint  look  toward  the 
offices  and  functions  of  a  poet,  they  will  easily  conclude  to  themselves 


PLAYS  AND   PURITANS.  89 

the  impossibility  of  any  man's  being  a  good  poet  without  first  being  a 
good  man.  He  that  is  said  to  be  able  to  inform  young  men  to  all  good 
discipline,  inflame  grown  men  to  all  great  virtues,  keep  old  men  in 
their  best  and  supreme  state,  or,  as  they  decline  to  childhood,  recover 
them  to  their  first  strength  ;  that  comes  forth  the  interpreter  and 
arbitrer  of  nature,  a  teacher  of  things  divine  no  less  than  human,  a 
master  in  manners ;  and  can  alone  (or  with  a  few)  effect  the  business 
of  mankind ;  this,  I  take  him,  is  no  subject  for  pride  and  ignorance  to 
exercise  their  railing  rhetorick  upon.  But  it  will  here  be  hastily 
answered,  that  the  writers  of  these  days  are  other  things,  that  not  only 
their  manners  but  their  natures  are  inverted,  and  nothing  remaining 
of  them  of  the  dignity  of  poet  but  the  abused  name,  which  every  scribe 
usurps ;  that  now,  especially  in  dramatick,  or  (as  they  term  it)  stage 
poetry,  nothing  but  ribaldry,  profanation,  blasphemies,  all  licence  of 
offence  toward  God  and  man  is  practised.  I  dare  not  deny  a  great 
part  of  this,  (and  I  am  sorry  I  dare  not,)  because  in  some  men's  abor 
tive  features,  (and  would  God  they  had  never  seen  the  light,)  it  is 
over  true  ;  but  that  ail  are  bound  on  his  bold  adventure  for  hell,  is  a 
most  uncharitable  thought,  and  uttered,  a  more  malicious  slander. 
For  every  particular  I  can  (and  from  a  most  clear  conscience)  affirm, 
that  I  have  ever  trembled  to  think  toward  the  least  profaneness,  and 
have  loathed  the  use  of  such  foul  and  unwashed,"  .  .  .  [his  ex 
pression  is  too  strong  for  quotation]  "  as  is  now  made  the  food  of  the 
scene." 

We  are  loth  to  curtail  this  splendid  passage,  both  for  its  lofty 
ideal  of  poetry,  and  for  its  corroboration  of  the  Puritan  com 
plaints  against  the  stage  :  but  a  few  lines  on  a  still  stronger  sen 
tence  occurs, — 

"  The  increase  of  which  lust  in  liberty,  together  with  the  present 
trade  of  the  stage,  in  all  their  masculine  interludes,  what  liberal  soul 
doth  not  abhor?  Where  nothing  but  filth  of  the  mire  is  uttered,  and 
that  with  such  impropriety  of  phrase,  such  plenty  of  solecisms,  such 
dearth  of  sense,  so  bold  prolepses,  such  racked  metaphors,  with  (in 
decency)  able  to  violate  the  ear  of  a  Pagan,  and  blasphemy  to  turn 
the  blood  of  a  Christian  to  water." 

So  speaks  Ben  Jonson  in  1605,  not  finding,  it  seems,  play- 
writing  a  peaceful  trade,  or  play-poets  and  play-hearers  improv 
ing  company.  After  him,  we  should  say,  no  farther  testimony 
on  this  unpleasant  matter  ought  to  be  necessary.  He  may  have 
been  morose,  fanatical,  exaggerative  :  but  his  bitter  words  sug 
gest  at  least  this  dilemma.  Either  they  are  true,  and  the  play 
house  atmosphere,  (as  Prynne  says  it  was,)  that  of  Gehenna  :  or 
they  are  untrue,  and  the  mere  fruits  of  spite  and  envy  against 
more  successful  poets.  And  what  does  that  latter  prove,  but 
that  the  greatest  poet  of  his  age  (after  Shakspeare  was  gone)  was 


90  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

not  as  much  esteemed  as  some  poets  whom  we  know  to  have 
been  more  filthy,  and  more  horrible  than  he  ?  which,  indeed,  is 
the  main  complaint  of  Jonson  himself.  It  will  be  rejoined,  of 
course,  that  he  was  an  altogether  envious  man ;  that  he  envied 
Shakspeare,  girded  at  his  York  and  Lancaster  plays,  at  The 
Winter's  Tale  and  The  Tempest,  in  the  prologue  to  Every  Man 
in  his  Humor  ;  and,  indeed,  Jonson's  writings,  and  those  of  many 
other  playwrights,  leave  little  doubt  that  stage  rivalry  called  out 
the  bitterest  hatred,  and  the  basest  vanity ;  and  that,  perhaps, 
Shakspeare's  great  soul  was  giving  way  to  the  pettiest  passions, 
when  in  Hamlet  he  had  his  fling  at  the  "  aiery  of  children,  little 
eyases,  that  cry  out  on  the  top  of  question,  and  are  most  tyran 
nically  clapp'd  for't."  It  may  be  that  he  was  girding  in  return 
at  Jonson,  when  he  complained  that  "  their  writers  did  them 
wrong  to  make  them  complain  against  their  own  succession,"  i.  e. 
against  themselves,  when  "  grown  to  common  players."  Be  that 
as  it  may.  Great  Shakspeare  may  have  been  unjust  to  only  less 
great  Jonson,  as  Jonson  was  to  Shakspeare  :  but  Jonson  certainly 
is  not  so  in  all  his  charges.  Some  of  the  faults  of  which  he  com 
plains  are  faults. 

At  all  events,  we  know  that  he  was  not  unjust  to  the  average 
of  his  contemporaries,  by  the  evidence  of  the  men's  own  plays.  We 
know  that  the  decadence  of  the  stage  of  which  he  complains  went 
on  uninterruptedly  after  his  time,  and  in  the  very  direction  which 
he  pointed  out.  On  this  point  there  can  be  no  doubt ;  for  these 
hodmen  of  poetry  "  made  a  wall  in  our  father's  house,  and  the 
bricks  are  alive  to  testify  unto  this  day."  So  that  we  cannot 
do  better  than  give  a  few  samples  thereof,  at  least  samples  de 
cent  enough  for  modern  readers,  and  let  us  begin  with  Jonson 
himself. 

Now,  we  love  Ben  Jonson  and  respect  him  too,  for  he  was  a 
very  great  genius,  immaculate  or  not.  "  Rare  Ben,"  with  all  his 
faults.  We  can  never  look  without  affection  on  the  magnificent 
manhood  of  that  rich  free  forehead,  even  though  we  sigh  over 
the  petulance  and  pride  which  brood  upon  the  lip  and  eyebrow. 

"  Dowered  with  the  hate  of  hate,  the  scorn  of  scorn, 
The  love  of  love." 

A  Michael  Angelo,  who  could  laugh,  which  that  Italian  one  (one 
fancies)  never  could.  We  have,  too,  a  sort  of  delicacy  about 
saying  much  against  him ;  for  he  is  dead,  and  can  make  (for  the 
time  being  at  least)  no  rejoinder.  There  are  dead  men  whom  one 
is  not  much  ashamed  to  k*  upset "  after  their  death,  because  one 
would  not  have  been  much  afraid  of  doing  so  when  they  were 


PLAYS  AND  PURITANS.  91 

alive.  But  "  Rare  Ben  "  had  terrible  teeth,  and  used  them  too  ; 
we  should  have  thought  twice  ere  we  snapt  at  him  living,  and 
therefore  it  seems  somewhat  a  cowardly  trick  to  bark  securely  at 
his  ghost.  Nevertheless,  let  us  ask  him,  or  at  least  his  readers, 
Do  not  his  own  words  justify  the  Puritan  complaints  ?  If  so, 
why  does  he  rail  at  the  Puritans  for  making  their  complaints  ? 
His  answer  would  have  been  that  they  railed  in  their  ignorance, 
not  merely  at  low  art,  as  we  call  it  now,  but  at  high  art  and  all 
art.  Be  it  so.  Here  was  their  fault,  if  fault  it  was  in  those 
days.  For  to  discriminate  between  high  art  and  low  art  they 
must  have  seen  both.  And  for  Jonson's  wrath  to  be  fair  and 
just  he  must  have  shown  them  both.  Let  us  see  what  the  pure 
drama  is  like  which  he  wishes  to  substitute  for  the  foul  drama  of 
his  contemporaries,  and,  to  bring  the  matter  nearer  home,  let  us 
take  one  of  the  plays  in  which  he  hits  deliberately  at  the  Puri 
tans,  namely,  the  Alchemist,  said  to  have  been  first  acted  in  1610, 
"  by  the  king's  majesty's  servants."  Look,  then,  at  this  well- 
known  play,  and  take  Jonson  at  his  word.  Allow  that  Ananias 
and  Tribulation  Wholesome  (as  they  very  probably  are)  are 
fair  portraits  of  a  class  among  the  sectaries  of  the  day :  but  bear 
in  mind,  too,  that  if  this  be  allowed,  the  other  characters  shall  be 
held  as  fair  portraits  also.  Otherwise,  all  must  be  held  to  be 
caricature ;  and  then  the  onslaught  on  the  Puritans  vanishes  into 
nothing,  or  worse :  in  either  case,  Ananias  and  Tribulation  are 
the  best  men  in  the  play.  They  palter  with  their  consciences, 
no  doubt ;  but  they  have  consciences,  which  no  one  else  in  the 
play  has,  except  poor  Surly,  and  he,  be  it  remembered,  comes  to 
shame,  and  is  made  a  laughing-stock,  and  "  cheats  himself,"  as 
he  complains  at  last,  "by  that  same  foolish  vice  of  honesty," 
while  in  all  the  rest  what  have  we  but  every  form  of  human 
baseness  ?  Lovell,  the  master,  if  he  is  to  be  considered  a  nega 
tive  character,  as  doing  no  wrong,  has,  at  all  events,  no  more 
recorded  of  him  than  the  noble  act  of  marrying  by  deceit  a  young 
widow  for  the  sake  of  her  money,  the  philosopher's  stone,  by  the 
by,  and  highest  object  of  most  of  the  seventeenth  century  dram 
atists.  If  most  of  the  rascals  meet  with  due  disgrace,  none  of 
them  is  punished ;  and  the  greatest  rascal  of  all,  who,  when 
escape  is  impossible,  turns  traitor,  and  after  deserving  the  cart 
and  pillory  a  dozen  times  for  his  last  and  most  utter  baseness, 
"  is  rewarded  by  full  pardon,  and  the  honour  of  addressing  the 
audience  at  the  play's'  end  in  the  most  smug  and  self-satisfied 
tone,  and  of  putting  himself  on  you  that  are  my  country,"  not 
doubting,  it  seems,  that  there  were  among  them  a  fair  majority 
who  would  think  him  a  very  smart  fellow,  worthy  of  all  imita 
tion. 


92  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

Now,  is  this  play  a  moral  or  an  immoral  one  ?  Should  we 
take  our  sons  and  daughters  to  see  it?  Of  its  coarseness  we  say 
nothing.  We  should  not  endure  it,  of  course,  now-a-days  ;  and 
on  that  point  something  must  be  said  hereafter  ;  but  if  we  were 
to  endure  plain  speaking  as  the  only  method  of  properly  expos 
ing  vice,  should  we  endure  the  moral  which,  instead  of  punishing 
vice,  rewards  it  ? 

And,  meanwhile,  what  sort  of  a  general  state  of  society  among 
the  Anti-Puritan  party  does  the  play  sketch  ?  What  but  a  horri 
ble  background  of  profligacy  and  frivolity? 

A  proof,  indeed,  of  the  general  downward  tendencies  of  the 
age  may  be  found  in  the  writings  of  Ben  Jonson  himself.  How 
soever  pure  and  lofty  the  ideal  which  he  laid  down  for  himself 
(and  no  doubt  honestly)  in  the  Preface  to  Volpone,  he  found  it 
impossible  to  keep  up  to  it.  Nine  years  afterwards  we  find  him, 
in  his  Bartholomew  Fair,  catering  to  the  low  tastes  of  James  the 
First  in  ribaldry,  at  which,  if  one  must  needs  laugh,  (as  who 
that  was  not  more  than  man  could  help  doing  over  that  scene 
between  Rabbi  Busy  and  the  puppets  ?)  shallow  and  untrue  as 
the  gist  of  the  humour  is,  one  feels  the  next  moment  as  if  one 
had  been  indulging  in  unholy  mirth  at  the  expense  of  some  grand 
old  Noah  who  has  come  to  shame  in  his  cups. 

But  lower  still  does  Jonson  fall  in  that  masque  of  the  Gypscys 
Metamorphosed,  presented  to  the  king  in  1621,  when  Jonson 
was  forty-seven,  old  enough,  one  would  have  thought,  to  know 
better.  It  is  not  merely  the  insincere  and  all  but  blasphemous 
adulation  which  is  shocking, — that  was  but  the  fashion  of  the 
times,  but  the  treating  these  gypseys  and  beggars,  and  their 
"  thieves'  Latin  "  dialect,  their  filthiness  and  cunning,  ignorance 
and  recklessness,  merely  as  themes  for  immoral  and  inhuman 
laughter.  Jonson  was  by  no  means  the  only  poet  of  that  day  to 
whom  the  hordes  of  profligate  and  heathen  nomads,  which  infested 
England,  were  only  a  comical  phase  of  humanity,  instead  of  being 
as  they  would  be  now,  thank  God !  objects  of  national  shame 
and  sorrow,  of  pity  and  love,  which  would  call  out  in  the  attempt 
to  redeem  them  the  talents  and  energies  of  great  and  good  men. 
But  Jonson  certainly  sins  more  in  this  respect  than  any  of  his 
contemporaries.  He  takes  a  low  pleasure  in  parading  his  inti 
mate  acquaintance  with  these  poor  creatures'  foul  slang  and  bar 
baric  laws,  and  is,  we  should  say,  the  natural  father  of  that  lowest 
form  of  all  literature  which  has  since  amused  the  herd,  though  in  a 
form  greatly  purified,  in  the  form  of  "  Beggars'  Operas,"  "  Dick 
Turpins,"  "  Pelhams,"  and  "  Jack  Sheppards."  Every  thing 
which  is  objectionable  in  such  modern  publications  as  these  was 
exhibited,  in  far  grosser  forms,  by  one  of  the  greatest  poets  who 


PLAYS   AND   PURITANS.  93 

ever  lived,  for  the  amusement  of  a  king  of  England  ;  and  yet  the 
world  still  is  at  a  loss  to  know  why  sober  and  God-fearing  men 
detested  both  the  poet  and  the  king. 

And  that  Masque  is  all  the  more  saddening  exhibition  of  the 
degradation  of  a  great  soul,  because  in  it,  here  and  there,  occur 
passages  of  the  old  sweetness  and  grandeur,  disjecta  membra 
poetcz,  such  as  these  which,  even  though  addressed  to  James,  are 
perfect  :  — 

"  3d  Gypsy. 

"  Look  how  the  winds,  upon  the  waves  grown  tame, 
Take  up  land  sounds  upon  their  purple  wings; 

And,  catching  each  from  other,  bear  the  same 
To  every  angle  of  their  sacred  springs. 

So  will  we  take  his  praise,  and  hurl  his  name 
About  the  globe,  in  thousand  airy  rings, 


Let  us  pass  on  —  why  stay  to  look  upon  the  fall  of  such  a  spirit  ? 
There  is  one  point,  nevertheless,  which  we  may  as  well  speak 
of  here,  and  shortly  ;  for  spoken  of  it  must  be  as  delicately  as  is 
possible.  The  laugh  raised  at  Zeal-for-the-land  Busy's  expense, 
in  Bartholomew  Fair,  turns  on  the  Puritan  dislike  of  seeing 
women's  parts  acted  by  boys.  Jonson  shirks  the  question  by 
making  poor  Busy  fall  foul  of  puppets  instead  of  live  human 
beings  ;  but  the  question  is  shirked,  nevertheless.  What  honest 
answer  he  could  have  given  to  the  Puritans,  is  hard  to  conceive. 
Prynne,  in  his  Histriomastix,  may  have  pushed  a  little  too  far 
the  argument  drawn  from  the  prohibition  in  the  Mosaic  law  ; 
yet  one  would  fancy  that  the  practice  was  forbidden  by  Moses's 
law  not  arbitrarily,  but  because  it  was  a  bad  practice,  which  did 
harm,  as  every  antiquarian  knows  that  it  did  ;  and  that,  there 
fore,  Prynne  was  but  reasonable  in  supposing  that  in  his  day,  a 
similar  practice  would  produce  a  similar  evil.  Our  firm  convic 
tion  is  that  it  did  so,  and  that  as  to  the  matter  of  fact,  Prynne 
was  perfectly  right,  and  that  to  make  a  boy  a  stage-player,  was 
pretty  certainly  to  send  him  to  the  Devil.  Let  any  man  of 
common  sense  imagine  to  himself  the  effect  on  a  young  boy's 
mind  which  would  be  produced  by  representing  shamelessly 
before  a  public  audience,  not  merely  the  language,  but  the  pas 
sions,  of  the  most  profligate  women,  of  such  characters  as  occur 
in  almost  every  play.  We  appeal  to  common  sense  —  would  any 
father  allow  his  own  children  to  personate,  even  in  private,  the 
basest  of  mankind  ?  And  yet  we  must  beg  pardon  :  for  common 
sense,  it  is  to  be  supposed,  has  decided  against  us,  as  long  as 
parents  allow  their  sons  to  act  yearly  at  Westminster  the  stupid 
low  art  of  Terence,  while  grave  and  reverend  prelates  and  divines 


94  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

look  on  approving.  But  we  have  too  good  reason  to  know  that  the 
Westminster  play  has  had  no  very  purifying  influence  on  the 
minds  of  the  young  gentlemen  who  personate  heathen  damsels 
"  of  easy  virtue  ;  "  and  we  only  ask,  What  must  have  been  the 
effect  of  representing  infinitely  fouler  characters  than  Terence's 
on  the  minds  of  uneducated  lads  of  the  lower  classes  ?  Prynne 
and  others  hint  at  still  darker  abominations  than  the  mere  defile 
ment  of  the  conscience ;  we  shall  say  nothing  of  them,  but  that 
from  collateral  evidence,  we  believe  every  word  they  say ;  and  that 
when  pretty  little  Cupid's  mother,  in  Jonson's  Christmas  masque, 
tells  how  "  She  could  have  had  money  enough  for  him,  had  she 
been  tempted,  and  have  let  him  out  by  the  week  to  the  king's 
players,"  and  how  "  Master  Burbadge  has  been  about  and  about 
with  her  for  him,  and  old  Mr.  Hemings  too,"  she  had  better  have 
tied  a  stone  round  the  child's  neck,  and  hove  him  over  London 
Bridge,  than  have  handed  him  over  to  thrifty  Burbadge,  that  he 
might  make,  out  of  the  degradation  of  Christ's  lamb,  more  money 
to  buy  land  withal,  and  settle  comfortably  in  his  native  town,  on 
the  fruits  of  others'  sin.  Honour  to  old  Prynne,  bitter  and  nar 
row  as  he  was,  for  his  passionate  and  eloquent  appeals  to  the 
humanity  and  Christianity  of  England,  in  behalf  of  those  poor 
children,  whom  not  a  bishop  on  the  bench  interfered  to  save ; 
but,  while  tliey  were  writing  and  persecuting  in  behalf  of  bap 
tismal  regeneration,  left  those  to  perish  whom  they  declared  so 
stoutly  to  be  regenerate  in  baptism.  Prynne  used  that  argument 
too,  and  declared  these  stage-plays  to  be  among  the  very  "  pomps 
and  vanities  which  Christians  renounced  at  baptism."  He  may 
or  may  not  have  been  wrong  in  identifying  them  with  the  old 
heathen  pantomimes  and  games  of  the  Circus,  and  in  burying  his 
adversaries  under  a  mountain  of  quotations  from  the  Fathers  and 
the  Romish  divines,  (for  Prynne's  reading  seems  to  have  been 
quite  enormous.)  Those  very  prelates  could  express  reverence 
enough  for  the  Fathers  when  they  found  aught  in  them  which 
could  be  made  to  justify  their  own  system,  though  perhaps  it  had 
really  even  less  to  do  therewith  than  the  Roman  pantomimes  had 
with  the  Globe  Theatre  ;  but  the  Church  of  England  had  re 
tained  in  her  Catechism  the  old  Roman  word  "  pomps,"  as  one 
of  the  things  which  were  to  be  renounced ;  and  as  "  pomps " 
confessedly  meant  at  first  those  very  spectacles  of  the  heathen 
circus  and  theatre,  Prynne  could  not  be  very  illogical  in  believ 
ing  that,  as  it  had  been  retained,  it  was  retained  to  testify  against 
something,  and  probably  against  the  thing  in  England  most  like 
the  "  pornps  "  of  heathen  Rome.  Meanwhile,  let  Churchmen 
decide  whether  of  the  two  was  the  better  Churchman — Prynne, 
who  tried  to  make  the  baptismal  covenant  mean  something,  or 


FLAYS   AND   PURITANS.  95 

Laud,  who  allowed  such  a  play  as  The  Ordinary  to  be  written 
by  his  especial  protege,  Cartwright,  the  Oxford  scholar,  and  acted 
probably  by  Oxford  scholars,  certainly  by  christened  boys.  We 
do  not  pretend  to  pry  into  the  counsels  of  the  Most  High ;  but  if 
unfaithfulness  to  a  high  and  holy  trust,  when  combined  with  lofty 
professions  and  pretensions,  does  (as  all  history  tells  us  that  it 
does)  draw  down  the  anger  and  vengeance  of  Almighty  God, 
then  we  need  look  no  further  than  this  one  neglect  of  the  seven 
teenth  century  prelates,  (whether  its  cause  was  stupidity,  insin 
cerity,  or  fear  of  the  monarchs  to  whose  tyranny  they  pandered,) 
to  discover  full  reason  why  it  pleased  God  to  sweep  them  out 
awhile  with  the  besom  of  destruction. 

There  is  another  feature  in  the  plays  of  the  seventeenth  cen 
tury,  new,  as  far  as  we  know,  alike  to  English  literature  and 
manners  ;  and  that  is,  the  apotheosis  of  Rakes.  Let  the  faults 
of  the  Middle  Age,  or  of  the  Tudors,  have  been  what  they  may, 
that  class  of  person  was  in  their  times  simply  an  object  of  disgust. 
The  word  which  then  signified  a  Rake  is,  in  the  Morte  cT  Arthur, 
(tempt.  Ed.  IV.)  the  foulest  term  of  disgrace  which  can  be  cast 
upon  a  knight ;  while  even  up  to  the  latter  years  of  Elizabeth, 
the  contempt  of  parents  and  elders  seems  to  have  been  thought  a 
grievous  sin.  In  Italy  even,  fountain  of  all  the  abominations  of 
the  age,  respect  for  the  fifth  commandment  seems  to  have  lin 
gered  after  all  the  other  nine  had  been  forgotten  ;  we  find  Casti- 
glione,  in  his  Corteggiano,  (about  1520,)  regretting  the  modest 
and  respectful  training  of  the  generation  which  had  preceded 
him ;  and  to  judge  from  facts,  the  Puritan  method  of  education, 
stern  as  it  was,  was  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  method  which, 
a  generation  before,  had  been  common  to  Romanist  and  to  Prot 
estant,  Puritan  and  Churchman. 

But  with  the  Stuart  era,  (perhaps  at  the  end  of  Elizabeth's 
reign,)  fathers  became  gradually  personages  who  are  to  be  dis 
obeyed,  sucked  of  their  money,  fooled,  even  now  and  then  robbed 
and  beaten,  by  the  young  gentleman  of  spirit ;  and  the  most 
Christian  kings,  James  and  Charles,  with  their  queens  and  court, 
sit  by  to  see  ruffling  and  roystering,  beating  the  watch  and  break 
ing  windows,  dicing,  drinking,  and  duelling,  adultery  and  forni 
cation,  (provided  the  victim  of  the  latter  sin  be  not  a  damsel  of 
gentle  birth,)  set  forth  not  merely  as  harmless  amusements  for 
young  gentlemen,  but,  (as  in  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  play  of 
Monsieur  Thomas,)  virtues  without  which  a  man  is  despicable. 
On  this  point,  as  on  many  others,  those  who  have,  for  ecclesias 
tical  reasons,  tried  to  represent  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth 
century  as  a  golden  age,  have  been  unfair.  There  is  no  immo 
rality  of  the  court  plays  of  Charles  II.'s  time,  which  may  not  be 


06  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

found  in  those  of  Charles  I.'s.  Sedley  and  Etherege  are  not 
a  whit  worse,  but  only  rnore  stupid,  than  Fletcher  or  Shirley  ; 
and  Monsieur  Thomas  is  the  spiritual  father  of  all  angry  lads, 
rufflers,  blades,  bullies,  mohocks,  Corinthians,  and  dandies,  down 
to  the  last  drunken  clerk  who  wrenched  off  a  knocker,  or  robbed 
his  master's  till  to  pay  his  Josses  at  a  betting-office.  True  ;  we 
of  this  generation  can  hardly  afford  to  throw  stones.  The  scape 
grace  ideal  of  humanity  has  enjoyed  royal  patronage  within  the 
last  half  century ;  and  if  Monsieur  Thomas  seemed  fair  in  the 
eyes  of  James  and  Charles,  so  did  Jerry  and  Corinthian  Tom  in 
those  of  "  the  first  gentleman  of  Europe."  Better  days,  however, 
have  dawned  :  Tom  and  Jerry,  instead  of  running  three  hundred 
nights,  would  be  as  little  endured  on  the  stage  as  Monsieur 
Thomas  would  be  ;  the  heroes  who  aspire  toward  that  ideal,  are 
now  consigned  by  public  opinion  to  Rhadamanthus  and  the  tread 
mill  ;  while  if,  like  Monsieur  Thomas,  they  knocked  down  their 
own  father,  they  would,  instead  of  winning  a  good  wife,  be  "  cut " 
by  braver  and  finer  gentlemen  than  Monsieur  Thomas  himself; 
but  what  does  this  fact  prove,  save  that  England  has  at  last  dis 
covered  that  the  Puritan  opinion  of  this  matter,  (as  of  some 
others,)  was  the  right  one  ? 

But  there  is  another  aspect  in  which  we  must  look  at  the 
Stuart  patronage  of  profligate  scape-graces  on  the  stage.  They 
would  not  have  been  endured  on  the  stage,  had  they  not  been 
very  common  off  it ;  and  if  there  had  not  been,  too,  in  the  hearts 
of  spectators,  some  lurking  excuse  for  them  ;  it  requires  no  great 
penetration  to  see  what  that  excuse  must  have  been.  If  the 
Stuart  age,  aristocracy,  and  court,  were  as  perfect  as  some  fancy 
them,  such  fellows  would  have  been  monstrous  in  it,  and  inexcu 
sable,  probably  impossible.  But  if  it  was,  (as  it  may  be  proved 
to  have  been,)  an  utterly  deboshed,  insincere,  decrepit,  and  de 
caying  age,  then  one  cannot  but  look  on  Monsieur  Thomas  with 
something  of  sympathy  as  well  as  pity.  Take  him  as  he  stands ; 
he  is  a  fellow  of  infinite  kindliness,  wit,  spirit,  and  courage :  but 
with  nothing  on  which  to  employ  those  powers.  He  would  have 
done  his  work  admirably  in  an  earnest  and  enterprising  age,  as 
a  Hudson's  Bay  Company  clerk,  an  Indian  civilian,  a  captain 
of  a  man-of-war, — any  thing  where  he  could  find  a  purpose  and  a 
work.  Doubt  it  not.  How  many  a  Monsieur  Thomas  of  our 
own  days,  whom,  two  years  ago,  one  had  rashly  fancied  capable 
of  nothing  higher  than  coulisses  and  cigars,  private  theatricals 
and  white  kid-gloves,  has  been  not  only  fighting  and  working 
like  a  man,  but  meditating  and  writing  homeward  like  a  Chris 
tian,  through  the  dull  misery  of  those  trenches  at  Sevastopol ; 
arid  has  found,  amid  the  Crimean  snows,  that  merciful  fire  of 


PLAYS   AND  PURITANS.  97 

God,  which  could  burn  the  chaff  out  of  his- heart,  and  thaw  the 
crust  of  cold  frivolity  into  warm  and  earnest  life.  And  even  at 
such  a  youth's  worst,  reason  and  conscience  alike  forbid  us  to 
deal  out  to  him  the  same  measure  as  we  do  to  the  offences  of  the 
cool  and  hoary  profligate,  or  to  the  darker  and  subtler  spiritual 
sins  of  -the  false  professor.  But  if  the  wrath  of  God  be  not 
unmistakably  and  practically  revealed  from  Heaven  against 
youthful  profligacy  and  disobedience,  in  after  sorrow  and  shame 
of  some  kind  or  other,  against  what  sin  is  it  revealed  ?  It  was 
not  left  for  our  age  to  discover  that  the  wages  of  sin  is  death  : 
but  Charles,  his  players,  and  his  courtiers,  refused  to  see  what 
the  very  heathen  had  seen,  and  so  had  to  be  taught  the  truth 
over  again  by  another  and  a  more  literal  lesson  ;  and  what 
neither  stage-plays  nor  sermons  could  teach  them,  sharp  shot  and 
cold  steel  did. 

"  But  still  the  Puritans  were  barbarians  for  hating  Art  alto 
gether."  The  fact  was,  that  they  hated  what  art  they  saw  in 
England,  and  that  this  was  low  art,  bad  art,  growing  ever  lower 
and  worse.  If  it  be  said  that  Shakspeare's  is  the  very  highest 
art,  the  answer  is,  that  what  they  hated  in  him  was  not  his  high 
art,  but  his  low  art,  the  foul  and  horrible  elements  which  he  had 
in  common  with  his  brother  play-writers.  True,  there  is  far  less 
of  these  elements  in  Shakspeare  than  in  any  of  his  compeers  : 
but  they  are  there.  And  what  the  Puritans  hated  in  him  was 
exactly  what  we  have  to  expunge,  before  we  can  now  represent 
his  plays.  If  it  be  said  that  they  ought  to  have  discerned  and 
appreciated  the  higher  elements  in  him.  so  ought  the  rest  of 
their  generation.  The  Puritans  were  surely  not  bound  to  see  in 
Shakspeare  what  his  patrons  and  his  brother  poets  did  not  see. 
And  it  is  surely  a  matter  of  fact,  that  the  deep  spiritual  knowledge 
which  makes,  and  will  make,  Shakspeare's  plays,  (and  them 
alone  of  all  the  seventeenth  century  plays,)  a  heritage  for  all 
men  and  all  ages,  quite  escaped  the  insight  of  his  contempo 
raries,  who  probably  put  him  in  the  same  rank  which  Webster, 
writing  about  1612,  has  assigned  to  him. 

"  I  have  ever  cherished  a  good  opinion  of  other  men's  witty  labours, 
especially  of  that  full  and  heightened  style  of  Master  Chapman ;  the 
laboured  and  understanding  works  of  Mr.  Jonson ;  the  no  less  witty 
composures  of  the  both  wittily  excellent  Mr.  Beaumont  and  Mr. 
Fletcher ;  and  lastly,  (without  wrong  last  to  be  named),  the  right 
happy  and  copious  industry  of  Mr.  Shakspeare,  Mr.  Dekker,  and  Mr. 
Heywood." 

While  Webster,  then,  the  best  poet  of  the  reign  of  Charles 
the  First,  sees  nothing  in  Shakspeare  beyond  the  same  "  happy 

5 


98  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

and  copious  industry,"  which  he  sees  in  Dekker  and  Heywood, — 
while  Cartwright,  perhaps  the  only  young  poet  of  real  genius  in 
Charles  the  First's  reign,  places  Fletcher's  name  "  Twixt  Jon- 
son's  grave  and  Shakspeare's  lighter  sound,"  and  tells  him  that, 

"  Shakspeare  to  thee  was  dull,  whose  best  wit  lies 
I'  th'  ladies'  questions,  and  the  fool's  replies. 

*  *  *  * 

Whose  wit  our  nice  times  would  obsceneness  call. 

#  *  #  *  # 
Nature  was  all  his  art;  thy  vein  was  free 
As  his,  but  without  his  scurrility ;  "  * 

while  even  Milton,  who,  Puritan  as  he  was,  loved  art  with  all 
his  soul,  only  remarks  on  Shakspeare's  marvellous  lyrical  sweet 
ness,  "  his  native  wood-notes  wild ; "  and  what  sharne  to  the 
Puritans  if  they,  too,  did  not  discover  the  stork  among  the  cranes  ? 

An  answer  has  been  often  given  to  arguments  of  this  kind, 
which  deserves  a  few  moments'  consideration.  It  is  said,  "  the 
grossness  of  the  old  play-writers  was  their  misfortune,  not  their 
crime.  It  was  the  fashion  of  the  age.  It  is  not  our  fashion, 
certainly ;  but  they  meant  no  harm  by  it.  The  age  was  a  free- 
spoken  one ;  and  perhaps  none  the  worse  for  that."  Mr.  Dyce, 
indeed,  the  editor  of  Webster's  plays,  seems  inclined  to  exalt  this 
habit  into  a  virtue.  After  saying  that  the  licentious  and  de 
bauched  are  made  "  as  odious  in  representation  as  they  would  be 
if  they  were  actually  present,"  (an  assertion  which  must  be  flatly 
denied,  save  in  the  case  of  Shakspeare,  who  seldom  or  never  to 
our  remembrance,  seems  to  forget  that  the  wages  of  sin  is  death, 
and  who,  however  coarse  he  may  be,  keeps  stoutly  on  the  side 
of  virtue,)  Mr.  Dyce  goes  on  to  say,  that  "  perhaps  the  language 
of  the  stage  is  purified  in  proportion  as  our  morals  are  deteri 
orated  ;  and  we  dread  the  mention  of  the  vices  which  we  are  not 
ashamed  to  practise ;  while  our  forefathers,  under  the  sway  of  a 
less  fastidious,  but  a  more  energetic  principle  of  virtue,  were 
careless  of  words,  and  only  considerate  of  actions." 

To  this  clever  piece  of  special  pleading  we  can  only  answer, 
that  the  fact  is  directly  contrary, — that  there  is  a  mass  of  unan 
imous  evidence  which  cannot  be  controverted,  to  prove  that 
England,  in  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century,  was  far 
more  immoral  than  in  the  nineteenth, — that  the  proofs  lie  patent 
to  any  dispassionate  reader ;  but  that  we  must  be  excused  from 
defiling  our  pen  by  transcribing  them. 

*  What  canon  of  cleanliness,  now  lost,  did  Cartwright  possess,  which  enabled 
him  to  pronounce  Fletcher,  or  indeed  himself,  purer  than  Shakspeare,  and  his 
times  "nicer"  than  those  of  James?  To  our  generation,  less  experienced  in 
the  quantitative  analysis  of  moral  dirt,  they  will  appear  all  equally  foul. 


PLAYS   AND   PURITANS.  99 

Let  it  be  said  that  coarseness  was  "  the  fashion  of  the  age." 
The  simple  question  is,  was  it  a  good  fashion  or  a  bad  ?     There 
is  no  doubt,  that  in  simple  states  of  society,  much  manly  virtue, 
and  much  female  purity,  have   often   consisted  with  very  broad 
language  and  very  coarse  manners.     But  what  of  that  ?    Drunk 
ards  may  very  often  be  very  honest  and  brave  men ;  does  that 
make  drunkenness  no  sin  ?  or  will  honesty  and  courage  prevent 
a  man's  being  the  worse  for  hard  drinking  ?     If  so,  why  have 
we  given  up  coarseness  of  language ;  and  why  has  it  been  the 
better,  rather  than  the  worse  part  of  the  nation,  the  educated 
and  religious,  rather  than   the  ignorant  and  wicked,  who  have 
given  it  up.     Why  ?     Simply  because  the  nation,  and  all  other 
nations  on  the  Continent,  in  proportion  to  their  morality,  have 
found  out  that  coarseness  of  language  is,  to  say  the  least,  unfit 
and  inexpedient ;  that  if  it  be  wrong  to  do   certain  things,  it  is 
also,  on  the  whole,  right  not  to  talk  of  them ;  that  even  certain 
things  which  are  right  and  blessed  and  holy,  lose  their  sanctity 
by  being  dragged  cynically  to  the  light  of  day,  instead  of  being 
left  in  the  mystery  in  which  God  has  wisely  shrouded  them.    On 
the  whole,  one  is  inclined  to  suspect  the  defence  of  coarseness  as 
insincere.     Certainly,  in  our  day,  it  will  not  hold.     If  any  one 
wishes  to  hear  coarse  language  in  "  good  society,"  he  can  hear  it 
in  Paris ;  but  one  questions  whether  Parisian   society  be  now 
"  under  the  sway  of  a  more  energetic  principle  of  virtue  "  than 
our  own.     The  sum  total  of  the   matter  seems  to  be,  that  we 
have  found  out  that  on  this  (and  as  we  shall  show  hereafter,  on 
several  other  points,)  the  old  Puritans  were  right.    And,  quaintly 
enough,  the  party  in  the  English  Church  who  hold  the  Puritans 
most  in  abhorrence,  are  the  most  scrupulous  now  upon  this  very 
point,  and,  in  their  dread  of  contaminating  the  minds  of  youth, 
are  carrying  education,  at  school  and  college,  to  such  a  more  than 
Puritan  precision,  that  with  the  most  virtuous  and  benevolent 
intentions,  they  are  in  danger  of  giving  lads  a  merely  conventual 
education, — a  hot-house  training  which  will  render  them  incapable 
hereafter  of  facing  either  the  temptations  or  the  labour  of  the 
world.   They  themselves  republished  Massinger's  Virgin  Martyr, 
because  it  was  a  pretty  Popish  story,  probably   written  by  a 
Papist,  (for  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  Massinger  was 
one,)  and  setting  forth  how  the  heroine  was  attended  all  through 
by  an  angel  in  the  fornl  of  a  page,  and  how  (not  to  mention  the 
really  beautiful  ancient  fiction  about  the  fruits  which  Dorothea 
sends  back  from  Paradise,)  Theophilus  overcomes  the  devil  by 
means  of  a  cross  composed  of  flowers.     Massinger's  account 'of 
Theophilus's  conversion,  will,  we  fear,  make  those  who  know  any 
thing  of  that  great  crisis  of  the  human  spirit,  suspect  that  Mas- 


100  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

singer's  experience  thereof  was  but  small :  the  fact  which  is  most 
interesting  is,  the  Virgin  Martyr 'is  one  of  the  foulest  plays 
known.  Every  pains  has  been  taken  to  prove  that  the  indecent 
scenes  in  the  play  were  not  written  by  Massinger,  but  by 
Dekker ;  on  what  grounds  we  know  not.  If  Dekker  assisted 
Massinger  in  the  play,  as  he  is  said  to  have  done,  we  are  aware 
of  no  canons  of  internal  criticism,  which  will  enable  us  to  decide, 
as  boldly  as  Mr.  Gifford  does,  that  all  the  indecency  is  Dekker's, 
and  all  the  poetry  Massinger's.  He  confesses  (as  indeed  he  is 
forced  to  do)  that  "  Massinger  himself  is  not  free  from  dialogues 
of  low  wit  and  buffoonery ;  "  and,  then,  after  calling  the  scenes 
in  question  "  detestable  ribaldry,"  "  a  loathsome  sorterkin,  engen 
dered  of  filth  and  dulness,"  recommends  them  to  the  reader's 
supreme  scorn  and  contempt, — with  which  feelings  the  reader 
will  doubtless  regard  them  ;  but  will  also,  if  he  be  a  thinking 
man,  draw  from  them  the  following  conclusions  :  that  even  if 
they  be  Dekker's,  (of  which  there  is  no  proof,)  Massinger  was 
forced,  in  order  to  the  success  of  his  play,  to  pander  to  the  public 
taste,  by  allowing  Dekker  to  interpolate  these  villainies ;  that  the 
play  which,  above  all  others  of  the  seventeenth  century,  contains 
the  most  supra-lunar  rosepink  of  piety,  devotion,  and  purity,  also 
contains  the  stupidest  abominations  of  any  extant  play ;  and 
lastly,  that  those  who  reprinted  it  for  its  rosepink  piety  and 
purity,  as  a  sample  of  the  Christianity  of  that  past  golden  age  of 
High-churchmanship  had  to  leave  out  about  one  third  of  the 
play,  for  fear  of  becoming  amenable  to  the  laws  against  abomin 
able  publications. 

No  one  denies  that  there  are  nobler  words  than  any  that  we 
have  quoted  in  Jonson,  in  Fletcher,  or  in  Massinger  :  but  nothing 
is  stronger  than  its  weakest  part ;  and  there  is  hardly  a  play 
(perhaps  none)  of  theirs  in  which  the  immoralities  of  which  we 
complain  do  not  exist, — few  of  which  they  do  not  form  an  integral 
part. 

Now,  if  this  is  the  judgment  which  we  have  to  pass  on  the 
morality  of  the  greater  poets,  what  must  the  lesser  ones  be  like  ? 
Look,  then,  at  Webster's  two  masterpieces,  Vittoria  Oorrom- 
borea  and  the  Duchess  of  Malfi.  A  few  words  spent  on  them 
will  surely  not  be  wasted ;  for  they  are  pretty  generally  agreed 
to  be  the  two  best  tragedies  written  since  Shakspeare's  time. 

The  whole  story  of  Vittoria  Corromborea  is  one  of  sin  and 
horror.  The  subject-matter  of  "the  play  is  altogether  made  up 
of  the  fiercest  and  the  basest  passions.  But  the  play  is  not  a 
study  of  those  passions,  from  which  we  may  gain  a  great  insight 
into  human  nature.  There  is  no  trace  (nor  is  there,  again,  in 
the  Duchess  of  Malfi,)  of  that  development  of  human  souls  for 


PLAYS  AND  PURITANS.  101 

good  or  evil,  which  is  Shakspeare's  especial  power, — the  power 
which  (far  more  than  any  accidental  "  beauties  ")  makes  his 
plays,  to  this  day,  the  delight  alike  of  the  simple  and  the  wise, 
while  his  contemporaries  are  all  but  forgotten.  The  highest  aim 
of  dramatic  art  is  to  exhibit  the  development  of  the  human 
soul ;  to  construct  dramas  in  which  the  conclusion  shall  depend, 
not  on  the  events,  but  on  the  characters,  and  in  which  the  char 
acters  shall  not  be  mere  embodiments  of  a  certain  passion,  or  a 
certain  u  humour,"  but  persons,  each  unlike  all  others ;  each 
having  a  destiny  of  his  own,  by  virtue  of  his  own  peculiarities, 
of  his  own  will,  and  each  proceeding  toward  that  destiny,  unfold 
ing  his  own  strength  and  weakness  before  the  eyes  of  the  audi 
ence,  and  in  such  a  way,  that,  after  his  first  introduction,  they 
should  be  able  (in  proportion  to  their  knowledge  of  human 
nature)  to  predict  his  conduct  under  any  given  circumstances. 
This  is  indeed  "  high  art : "  but  we  find  no  more  of  it  in  Webster 
than  in  the  rest.  His  characters,  be  they  old  or  young,  come  on 
the  stage  ready-made,  full-grown,  and  stereotyped ;  and,  there 
fore,  in  general,  they  are  not  characters  at  all,  but  mere  passions 
or  humours  in  a  human  form.  Now  and  then  he  essays  to  draw 
a  character ;  but  it  is  analytically,  by  description,  not  dramati 
cally,  by  letting  the  man  exhibit  himself  in  action ;  and  in  the 
Duchess  of  Malfi,  he  falls  into  the  great  mistake  of  telling,  by 
Antonio's  mouth,  more  about  the  Duke  and  the  Cardinal  than 
he  afterwards  makes  them  act.  Very  different  is  Shakspeare's 
method  of  giving,  at  the  outset,  some  single  delicate  hint  about 
his  personages,  which  will  serve  as  a  clue  to  their  whole  future 
conduct,  thus  "  showing  the  whole  in  each  part,"  and  stamping 
each  man  with  a  personality,  to  a  degree  which  no  other  dram 
atist  has  ever  approached.  But  the  truth  is,  that  the  study  of 
human  nature  is  not  Webster's  aim.  He  has  to  arouse  terror 
and  pity,  not  thought,  and  he  does  it  in  his  own  way,  by  blood 
and  fury,  madmen  and  screech-owls,  not  without  a  rugged  power. 
There  are  scenes  of  his,  certainly,  like  that  of  Vittoria's  trial, 
which  have  been  praised  for  their  delineation  of  character ;  but 
it  is  one  thing  to  solve  the  problem,  which  Shakspeare  has  so 
handled  in  Lear,  and  Othello,  and  Richard  the  Third,  "  given  a 
mixed  character  to  show  how  he  may  become  criminal,"  and  to 
solve  Webster's  "  given  a  ready-made  criminal,  to  show  what  he 
will  say  and  do  on  a  certain  occasion."  To  us  the  knowledge  of 
character  shown  in  Vittoria's  trial-scene,  is  not  an  insight  into 
Vittoria's  especial  heart  and  brain,  but  a  general  acquaintance 
with  the  conduct  of  all  bold,  bad  women  when  brought  to  bay. 
Poor  Elia,  who  knew  the  world  from  books,  and  human  nature 
principally  from  his  own  loving  and  gentle  heart,  talks  of  Vitto- 


102  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

ria's  innocence — resembling  boldness* — and  seeming  to  see  that 
matchless  beauty  of  her  face,  which  inspires  such  gay  confidence 
in  her,  and  so  forth. 

Perfectly  just  and  true,  not  of  Vittoria  merely,  but  of  the 
average  of  unfortunate  females  in  the  presence  of  a  police  magis 
trate,  yet  amounting  in  all  merely  to  this,  that  the  strength  of 
Webster's  confest  master-scene  lies  simply  in  intimate  acquaint 
ance  with  vicious  nature  in  general.  We  will  say  no  more  on 
this  matter,  save  to  ask,  cui  bono  ? — was  the  art  of  which  this 
was  the  highest  manifestation  likely  to  be  of  much  use  to  man 
kind,  much  less  to  excuse  its  palpably  disgusting  and  injurious 
accompaniments  ? 

The  Duchess  of  Malfi  is  certainly  in  a  purer  and  loftier  strain ; 
but  in  spite  of  the  praise  which  has  been  lavished  on  her,  we 
must  take  the  liberty  to  doubt  whether  the  poor  Duchess  is  "  a 
person  "  at  all.  General  goodness  and  beauty,  intense  though 
pure  affection  for  a  man  below  her  in  rank,  and  a  will  to  carry 
out  her  purpose  at  all  hazards,  are  not  enough  to  distinguish  her 
from  thousands  of  other  women ;  but  Webster  has  no  such  pur 
pose.  What  he  was  thinking  and  writing  of  was,  not  truth,  but 
effect ;  not  the  Duchess,  but  her  story ;  not  her  brothers,  but 
their  rage ;  not  Antonio,  her  major-domo  and  husband,  but  his 
good  and  bad  fortunes ;  and  thus  he  has  made  Antonio  merely 
insipid,  the  brothers  merely  unnatural,  and  the  Duchess,  (in  the 
critical  moment  of  the  play,)  merely  forward.  That  curious 
scene,  in  which  she  acquaints  Antonio  with  her  love  for  him, 
and  makes  him  marry  her,  is,  on  the  whole,  painful.  Webster 
himself  seems  to  have  felt  that  it  was  so ;  and,  dreading  lest  he 
had  gone  too  far,  to  have  tried  to  redeem  the  Duchess  at  the  end 
by  making  her  break  down  in  two  exquisite  lines  of  loving 
shame :  but  he  has  utterly  forgotten  to  explain  or  justify  her 
love,  by  giving  to  Antonio,  (as  Shakspeare  would  probably  have 
done,)  such  strong  specialties  of  character  as  would  compel,  and 
therefore  excuse  his  mistress's  affection.  He  has  plenty  of  time 
to  do  this  in  the  first  scenes, — time  which  he  wastes  on  irrelevant 
matter ;  and  all  that  we  gather  from  them  is  that  Antonio  is  a 
worthy  and  thoughtful  person.  If  he  gives  promise  of  being 
more,  he  utterly  disappoints  that  promise  afterwards.  In  the 
scene  in  which  the  Duchess  tells  her  love,  he  is  far  smaller, 
rather  than  greater  than  the  Antonio  of  the  opening  scene, 
though  (as  there)  altogether  passive.  He  hears  his  mistress's 

*  C.  Lamb.  Specimens  of  English  Dramatic  Poets,  p.  229.  From  which 
specimens,  be  it  remembered,  he  has  had  to  expunge  not  only  all  the  comic 
scenes,  but  generally  the  greater  part  of  the  plot  itself,  to  make  the  book  at  all 
tolerable. 


PLAYS  AND   PURITANS.  J03 

declaration  just  as  any  other  respectable  youth  might;  is  exceed 
ingly  astonished,  and  a  good  deal  frightened ;  has  to  be  talked 
out  of  his  fears  till  one  naturally  expects  a  revulsion  on  the 
Duchess's  part  into  something  like  scorn  or  shame,  (which  might 
have  given  a  good  opportunity  for  calling  out  sudden  strength  in 
Antonio:)  but  so  busy  is  Webster  with  his  business  of  drawing 
mere  blind  love,  that  he  leaves  Antonio  to  be  a  mere  puppet, 
whose  worthiness  we  are  to  believe  in  only  from  the  Duchess's 
assurance  to  him  that  he  is  perfection  of  all  that  a  man  should 
be ;  which,  as  all  lovers  are  of  the  same  opinion  the  day  before 
the  wedding,  is  not  of  much  importance. 

Neither  in  his  subsequent  misfortunes  does  Antonio  make  the 
least  struggle  to  prove  himself  worthy  of  his  mistress's  affection. 
He  is  very  resigned,  and  loving,  and  so  forth.  To  win  renown 
by  great  deeds,  and  so  prove  her  in  the  right  to  her  brothers  and 
to  all  the  world,  never  crosses  his  imagination.  His  highest  aim 
(and  that  only  at  last)  is  slavishly  to  entreat  pardon  from  his 
proud  brothers-in-law,  for  the  mere  offence  of  marrying  their 
sister ;  and  he  dies  by  an  improbable  accident,  the  same  pious 
and  respectable  insipidity  which  he  has  lived, — "  ne  valant  pas 
le  peine  qui  se  donne  pour  lui."  The  prison-scenes  between  the 
Duchess  and  her  tormentors  are  painful  enough,  if  to  give  pain 
be  a  dramatic  virtue ;  and  she  appears  in  them  really  noble,  and 
might  have  appeared  far  more  so,  had  Webster  taken  half  as 
much  pains  with  her  as  he  has  with  the  madmen,  ruffians,  ghosts, 
and  screech-owls  in  which  his  heart  really  delights.  The  only 
character  really  worked  out,  so  as  to  live  and  grow  under  his 
hand  is  Bosola,  who,  of  course,  is  the  villain  of  the  piece,  and 
being  a  rough  fabric,  is  easily  manufactured  with  rough  tools. 
Still,  Webster  has  his  wonderful  touches  here  and  there, — 

"  Cariola.  Hence,  villains,  tyrants,  murderers  !     Alas  ! 
What  will  you  do  with  my  lady?     Call  for  help ! 

Duchess.  To  *whom  ?  to'our  next  neighbours ?     They  are  mad  folk. 
Farewell,  Cariola. 

I  pray  thee  look  thou  giv'st  my  little  boy 
Some  syrop  for  his  cold;  and  let  the  girl 
Say  her  pravers  ere  she  sleep. — Now,  what  you  please ; 
What  death?  " 

And  so  the  play  ends ;  as  does  Vittoria  Corrombona,  with 
half-a-dozen  murders  coram  populo,  raving  madness,  despair,  bed 
lam  and  the  shambles  ;  putting  the  reader  marvellously  in  mind 
of  that  well-known  old  book  of  the  same  era,  Reynolds^  God's 
Revenge  against  the  Crying  Sins  of  Muriher  and  Adultery,  in 
which,  with  all  due  pious  horror,  and  bombastic  sermonizing,  the 
national  appetite  for  abominations  is  duly  fed  with  some  fifty 
unreadable  Spanish  histories,  French  histories,  Italian  histories, 


104  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

and  so  forth,  one  or  two  of  which,  of  course,  are  known  to  have 
furnished  subjects  for  the  playwrights  of  the  day. 

The  next  play-writer  whom  we  are  bound  to  notice  is  James 
Shirley,-  one  of  the  many  converts  to  Romanism  which  those 
days  saw,  who  appears,  up  to  the  breaking  out  of  the  Civil  War, 
to  have  been  the  queen's  favourite  poet,  and  who,  according  to 
Langdaine,  was  "  one  of  such  incomparable  parts,  that  he  was 
the  chief  of  the  second-rate  poets,  and  by  some  has  been  thought 
even  equal  to  Fletcher  himself." 

We  must  entreat  the  reader's  attention  while  we  examine  Shir 
ley's  Gamester.  Whether  the  examination  be  a  pleasant  business 
or  not,  it  is  somewhat  important,  "  for,"  says  Mr.  Dyce,  "  the  fol 
lowing  memorandum  respecting  it  occurs  in  the  office-book  of  the 
Master  of  the  Records :  *  On  Thursday  night,  6th  of  February, 
1633,  The  Gamester  was  acted  at  Court,  made  by  Sherley,  out 
of  a  plot  of  the  king's,  given  him  by  mee,  and  well  likte.  The 
king  sayd  it  was  the  best  play  he  had  seen  for  seven  years.' " 

This  is,  indeed,  important.  We  shall  now  have  an  opportu 
nity  of  fairly  testing  at  the  same  time  the  taste  of  the  Royal 
Martyr,  and  the  average  merit,  at  least  in  the  opinion  of  the 
Caroline  Court,  of  the  dramatists  of  that  day. 

The  plot  which  Charles  sent  to  Shirley  as  a  fit  subject  for  his 
muse,  is  taken  from  one  of  those  abominable  collections  of  Ital 
ian  novels,  of  which  we  have  already  had  occasion  to  speak,  and 
occurs  in  the  second  part  of  the  Ducento  Novello  of  Celio  Males- 
pini ;  and  what  it  is  we  shall  see  forthwith. 

The  play  opens  with  a  scene  between  one  Wilding  and  his 
ward  Penelope,  in  which  he  attempts  to  seduce  the  young  lady, 
in  language  which  has  certainly  the  merit  of  honesty  ;  she  refuses 
him,  but  civilly  enough,  and  on  her  departure  Mrs.  Wilding 
enters,  who,  it  seems,  is  the  object  of  her  husband's  loathing, 
though  young,  handsome,  and  in  all  respects  charming  enough. 
After  a  scene  of  stupid  and  brutal  insults  he  has  the  effrontery  to 
ask  her  to  bring  Penelope  to  him,  at  which  she  naturally  goes 
out  in  anger ;  and  Hazard,  the  gamester  enters, — a  personage 
without  a  character  in  any  sense  of  the  word.  There  is  next 
some  talk  against  duelling,  sensible  enough,  which  arises  out  of  a 
by-plot, — one  Delamere  having  been  wounded  in  a  duel  by  one 
Beaumont,  mortally  as  is  supposed.  This  by-plot  runs  through 
the  play,  giving  an  opportunity  for  bringing  in  a  father  of  the 
usual  playhouse  type, — a  Sir  Richard  Hurry,  who  is,  of  course, 
as  stupid,  covetous,  proud,  and  tyrannical,  and  unfeeling  as  play 
house  fathers  were  then  found  to  be ;  but  it  is  of  the  most  com 
monplace  form,  turning  on  the  stale  trick  of  a  man  expecting  to 
be  hanged  for  killing  some  one  who  turns  out  after  all  to  have 


PLAYS   AND    PURITANS.  105 

recovered,  and  having  no  bearing  whatsoever  on  the  real  plot,  which 
is  this  :  Mrs.  Wilding,  in  order  to  win  back  her  husband's  affections, 
persuades  Penelope  to  seem  to  grant  his  suit,  while  Mrs.  Wilding 
herself  is  in  reality  to  supply  her  niece's  place,  and  shame  her  hus 
band  into  virtue.  Wilding  tells  Hazard  of  the  good  fortune  which 
he  fancies  is  coming,  in  scenes  of  which  one  can  only  say,  that  if 
they  are  not  written  for  the  purpose  of  exciting  the  passions,  it  is 
hard  to  see  why  they  were  written  at  all.  But,  being  with  Hazard 
in  a  gambling-house  at  the  very  hour  at  which  he  is  to  meet  Pene 
lope,  and  having  had  a  run  of  bad  luck,  he  borrows  a  hundred 
pounds  of  Hazard,  stays  at  the  table  to  recover  his  losses,  and  sends 
Hazard  to  supply  his  place  with  the  supposed  Penelope.  A  few 
hours  before  Penelope  and  Hazard  have  met  for  the  first  time, 
and  Penelope  considers  him,  as  she  says  to  herself  aside,  "  a 
handsome  gentleman."  He  begins,  of  course,  talking  lewdly  to 
her ;  and  the  lady,  so  far  from  being  shocked  with  the  freedom  of 
her  new  acquaintance,  pays  him  back  in  his  own  coin  in  such 
good  earnest  that  she  soon  silences  him  in  the  battle  of  dirt- 
throwing.  Of  this  sad  scene,  it  is  difficult  to  say,  whether  it 
indicates  a  lower  standard  of  purity  and  courtesy  in  the  poet,  in 
the  audience  who  endured  it,  or  in  the  society  of  which  it  was,  of 
course,  intended  to  be  a  brilliant  picture.  If  the  cavaliers  and 
damsels  of  Charles  the  First's  day  were  in  the  habit  of  talking 
in  that  way  to  each  other,  (and  if  they  had  not  been,  Shirley 
would  not  have  dared  to  represent  them  as  doing  so,)  one  cannot 
much  wonder  that  the  fire  of  God  was  needed  to  burn  up 
(though  alas  !  only  for  a  while)  such  a  state  of  society,  and  that 
when  needed  the  fire  fell. 

The  rest  of  the  story  is  equally  bad.  Hazard  next  day  gives 
Wilding  voluptuous  descriptions  of  his  guilt,  and  while  Wilding 
is  in  the  height  of  self-reproach  at  having  handed  over  his  victim 
to  another,  his  wife  meets  him,  and  informs  him  that  she  herself 
and  not  Penelope  has  been  the  victim.  Now  comes  the  crisis  of 
the  plot,  the  conception  which  so  delighted  the  taste  of  the  Royal 
Martyr.  Wilding  finds  himself,  as  he  expresses  it,  "  fitted  with  a 
pair  of  horns  of  his  own  making  ; "  and  his  rage,  shame,  and  base 
attempts  to  patch  up  his  own  dishonour  by  marrying  Penelope  to 
Hazard,  (even  at  the  cost  of  disgorging  the  half  of  her  portion, 
which  he  had  intended  to  embezzle,)  furnish  amusement  to  the 
audience  to  the  end  of  the  play  ;  at  last,  on  Hazard  and  Penelope 
coming  in  married,  Wilding  is  informed  that  he  has  been  deceived, 
and  that  his  wife  is  unstained,  having  arranged  with  Hazard  to 
keep  up  the  delusion,  in  order  to  frighten  him  into  good  beha 
viour;  whereupon  Mr.  Wilding  promises  to  be  a  good  husband 
henceforth,  and  the  play  ends. 


106  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

Throughout  the  whole  of  this  farrago  of  improbable  iniquity 
not  a  single  personage  has  any  mark  of  personal  character,  or 
even  of  any  moral  quality,  save  (in  Mrs.  Wilding's  case)  that  of 
patience  under  injury.  Hazard,  the  gamester,  is  chosen  as  the  hero, 
for  what  reason  it  is  impossible  to  say ;  he  is  a  mere  profligate 
nonentity,  doing  nothing  which  may  distinguish  him  from  any 
other  gamester  and  blackguard,  save  that  he  is,  as  we  are  told, 

"  A  man  careless 

Of  wounds ;  and  though  he  have  not  had  the  luck 

To  kill  so  many  as  another,  dares 

Fight  with  all  them  that  have." 

He,  nevertheless,  being  in  want  of  money,  takes  a  hundred 
pounds  from  a  foolish  old  city  merchant  (city  merchants  are 
always  fools  in  the  seventeenth  century)  to  let  his  nephew,  young 
Barnacle,  give  him  a  box  on  the  ear  in  a  tavern,  and  (after  the 
young  cit  has  been  transformed  into  an  intolerable  bully  by  the 
fame  so  acquired)  takes  another  hundred  pounds  to  the  repentant 
uncle  for  kicking  the  youth  back  into  his  native  state  of  peaceful 
cowardice.  With  the  exception  of  some  little  humour  in  these 
scenes  with  young  Barnacle  the  whole  play  is  thoroughly  stupid. 
We  look  in  vain  for  any  thing  like  a  reflection,  a  sentiment,  even 
a  novel  image.  Its  language,  like  its  morality,  is  all  but  on  a 
level  with  the  laboured  vulgarities  of  the  Relapse  or  the  Pro 
voked  Wife,  save  that  (Shirley  being  a  confessed  copier  of  the 
great  dramatists  of  the  generation  before  him)  there  is  enough  of 
the  manner  of  Fletcher  and  Ben  Jonson  kept  up  to  hide,  at  first 
sight,  the  utter  want  of  any  thing  like  their  matter ;  and  as  one 
sickens  with  contempt  at  the  rakish  swagger,  and  the  artificial 
smartness  of  his  coxcombs,  one  regrets  the  racy  and  unaffected 
blackguardism  of  the  earlier  poets'  men. 

This,  forsooth,  is  the  best  comedy  that  Charles  had  heard  for 
seven  years,  and  the  plot  which  he  himself  furnished  for  the 
occasion,  fitted  to  an  English  audience  by  a  Romish  convert. 

And  yet  there  is  one  dramatist  of  that  fallen  generation  over 
whose  memory  one  cannot  but  linger,  fancying  what  he  would 
have  become,  and  wondering  why  so  great  a  spirit  was  checked 
suddenly  ere  half-developed,  by  the  fever  which  carried  him  off, 
with  several  other  Oxford  worthies,  in  1643,  when  he  was  at 
most  thirty-two  (and  according  to  one  account  only  twenty-eight) 
years  old.  Let  which  of  the  two  dates  be  the  true  one,  Cart- 
wright  must  always  rank  among  our  wondrous  youths,  by  the  side 
of  Prince  Henry,  the  Admiral  Crichton,  and  others,  of  whom 
one's  only  doubt  is,  whether  they  were  not  too  wondrous,  too 
precociously  complete  for  future  development.  We  find  Dr. 


PLAYS  AND  PURITANS.  107 

Fell,  sometime  Bishop  of  Oxford,  saying  that  "  Cartwright  was 
the  utmost  man  could  come  to ; "  we  read  how  his  body  was  as 
handsome  as  his  soul ;  how  he  was  an  expert  linguist,  not  only  in 
Greek  and  Latin,  but  in  French  and  Italian,  an  excellent  orator, 
admirable  poet ;  how  Aristotle  was  no  less  known  to  him  than 
Cicero  and  Virgil,  and  his  metaphysical  lectures  preferred  to 
those  of  all  his  predecessors,  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln  only  except- 
ed,  "  and  his  sermons,  lastly,"  as  much  admired  as  his  other 
composures,  and  how  one  fitly  applied  to  him  that  saying  of  Aris 
totle  concerning  QEschron  the  poet,  that  "  he  could  not  tell  what 
CEschron  could  hot  do."  We  find  pages  on  pages  of  high-flown 
epitaphs  and  sonnets  on  him,  in  which  the  exceeding  bad  taste  of 
his  admirers  makes  one  incline  to  doubt  the  taste  of  him  whom 
they  so  bedaub  with  praise  :  and  certainly,  in  spite  of  all  due 
admiration  for  the  Crichton  of  Oxford,  one  is  unable  to  indorse 
Mr.  Jasper  Mayne's  opinion,  that 

"  In  thee  Ben  Jonson  still  held  Shakspeare's  stile: " 
or  that  he  possest 

"  Lucan's  bold  heights  match' d  to  staid  Virgil's  care, 
Martial's  quick  salt,  joined  to  Musseus'  tongue." 

This  superabundance  of  eulogy,  when  we  remember  the  men  and 
the  age  from  which  it  comes,  tempts  one  to  form  such  a  con 
ception  of  Cartwright  as,  indeed,  the  portrait  prefixed  to  his 
works  (eel.  1651)  gives  us;  the  offspring  of  an  over-educated 
and  pedantic  age,  highly  stored  with  every  thing  but  strength 
and  simplicity ;  one  in  whom  genius  has  been  rather  shaped 
(perhaps  cramped)  than  developed:  but  genius  was  present, 
without  a  doubt,  under  whatsoever  artificial  trappings ;  and  Ben 
Jonson  spoke  but  truth  when  he  said,  "  My  son  Cartwright  writes 
all  like  a  man."  It  is  impossible  to  open  a  page  of  The  Lady 
Errant,  The  Royal  Slave,  The  Ordinary,  or  Love's  Convert, 
without  feeling  at  once  that  we  have  to  do  with  a  man  of  a  very 
different  stamp  from  any  (Massinger  perhaps  alone  excepted) 
who  was  writing  between  1 630  and  1 640.  The  specific  density 
of  the  poems,  so  to  speak,  is  far  greater  than  that  of  any  of  his 
contemporaries ;  everywhere  is  thought,  fancy,  force,  varied  learn 
ing.  He  is  never  weak  or  dull,  though  he  fails  often  enough,  is 
often  enough  wrong-headed,  fantastical,  affected,  and  has  never 
laid  bare  the  deeper  arteries  of  humanity,  for  good  or  for  evil. 
Neither  is  he  altogether  an  original  thinker  ;  as  one  would  expect 
he  has  over-read  himself;  but  then  he  has  done  so  to  good  pur 
pose.  If  he  imitates  he  generally  equals.  The  table  of  fare  in 


108  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

The  Ordinary  smacks  of  Rabelais,  but  then  it  is  worthy  of 
Rabelais  ;  and  if  one  cannot  help  suspecting  that  The  Ordinary 
would  never  have  been  written  had  not  Ben  Jonson  written  The 
Alchemist,  one  confesses  that  Ben  Jonson  need  not  have  been 
ashamed  to  have  written  the  play  himself,  although  the  plot,  as  all 
Cartwright's  are,  is  somewhat  confused  and  inconsequent.  If  he 
be  platonically  sentimental  in  Love's  Convert,  his  sentiment  is  of 
the  noblest  and  purest ;  and  the  confessed  moral  of  the  play  is 
one  which  that  age  needed,  if  ever  age  on  earth  did. 

"  'Tis  the  good  man's  office  ' 
To  serve  and  reverence  woman,  as  it  is 
The  fire's  to  burn;  for  as  our  souls  consist 
Of  sense  and  reason,  so  do  yours,  more  noble, 
Of  sense  and  love,  which  doth  as  easily  calm 
All  your  desires,  as  Reason  quiets  ours. 

Love,  then,  doth  work  in  you,  what  Reason  doth 
In  us,  here  only  lies  the  difference, — 
Ours  wait  the  lingering  steps  of  Age  and  Time, 
But  the  woman's  soul  is  ripe  when  it  is  young; 
So  that  in  us  what  we  call  learning,  is 
Divinity  in  you,  whose  operations, 
Impatient  of  delay,  do  outstrip  time." 

For  the  sake  of  such  words,  in  the  midst  of  an  evil  and  adul 
terous  generation,  we  will  love  young  Cartwright  in  spite  of  the 
suspicion  that,  addressed  as  the  play  is  to  Charles,  and  probably 
acted  before  his  queen,  the  young  rogue  had  been  playing  the 
courtier  somewhat,  and  racking  his  brains  for  pretty  sayings 
which  would  exhibit  as  a  virtue  that  very  uxoriousness  of  the 
poor  king's,  which  at  last  cost  him  his  head.  The  Royal  Slave, 
too,  is  a  gallant  play,  right-hearted  and  lofty  from  beginning  to 
end,  though  enacted v  in  an  impossible  court-cloud-world  akin  to 
that  in  which  the  classic  heroes  and  heroines  of  Corneille  and 
Racine  call  each  other  Monsieur  and  Madame. 

As  for  his  humour  ;  he,  alas  !  can  be  dirty  like  the  rest,  when 
necessary:  but  humour  he  has,  of  the  highest  quality.  The 
Ordinary  is  full  of  it ;  and  Moth,  the  Antiquary,  though  too 
much  of  a  lay  figure,  and  depending  for  his  amusingness  on  his 
quaint  antiquated  language,  is  such  a  sketch  as  Mr.  Dickens  need 
not  have  been  ashamed  to  draw. 

The  Royal  Slave  seems  to  have  been  considered,  both  by  the 
Court  and  by  his  contemporaries,  his  masterpiece.  And  justly 
so ;  yet  our  pleasure  at  Charles's  having  shown,  for  once,  good 
taste,  is  somewhat  marred  by  Langbaine's  story,  that  the  good 
acting  of  the  Oxford  scholars,  "  stately  scenes,  and  richness  of 
the  Persian  habits,"  had  as  much  to  do  with  the  success  of  the 
play  as  its  "  stately  style,"  and  "  the  excellency  of  the  songs, 


PLAYS  AND  PURITANS.  109 

which  were  set  by  that  admirable  composer,  Mr.  Henry  James." 
True  it  is,  that  the  songs  are  excellent,  as  are  all  Cartwright's  ; 
for  grace,  simplicity,  and  sweetness,  equal  to  any  (save  Shak- 
speare's)  which  the  seventeenth  century  produced  :  but  curiously 
enough,  his  lyric  faculty  seems  to  have  exhausted  itself  in  these 
half-dozen  songs.  His  minor  poems  are  utterly  worthless,  out- 
Cowleying  Cowley  in  frigid  and  fantastic  conceits  ;  and  his  various 
addresses  to  the  king  and  queen  are  as  bombastic,  and  stupid,  and 
artificial,  as  any  thing  which  disgraced  the  reigns  of  Charles  II. 
or  his  brother. 

Are  we  to  gather  from  this  fact  that  Cartwright  was  not  really 
an  original  genius,  but  only  a  magnificent  imitator?  that  he  could 
write  plays  well  because  others  had  written  them  well  already, 
but  only  for  that  reason  ;  and  that  for  the  same  reason,  when  he 
attempted  detached  lyrics  and  addresses,  he  could  only  follow  the 
abominable  models  which  he  saw  around  him  ?  We  know  not : 
for  surely  in  Jonson  and  Shakspeare's  minor  poems  he  might 
have  found  simpler  and  sweeter  types  ;  and  even  in  those  of 
Fletcher,  who  appears,  from  his  own  account,  to  have  been  his 
especial  pattern  ;  Shakspeare,  however,  as  we  have  seen,  he 
looked  down  on,  as  did  the  rest  of  his  generation. 

Cartwright,  as  an  Oxford  scholar,  is  of  course  a  worshipper  of 
Charles,  and  a  hater  of  Puritans.  We  do  not  wish  to  raise  a 
prejudice  against  so  young  a  man,  by  quoting  any  of  the  ridicu 
lous,  and  often  somewhat  abject,  rant  with  which  he  addresses 
their  majesties  on  their  return  from  Scotland,  on  the  queen's 
delivery,  on  the  birth  of  the  Duke  of  York,  and  so  forth — for  in 
that  he  did  but  copy  the  tone  of  grave  divines  and  pious  prelates  ; 
but  he,  unfortunately  for  his  fame,  is  given  (as  young  geniuses 
are  sometimes)  to  prophesy ;  and  two  of  his  prophecies,  at  least, 
have  hardly  been  fulfilled.  He  was  somewhat  mistaken,  when, 
on  the  birth  of  the  Duke  of  York,  he  informed  the  world  that 

"  The  state  is  now  past  fear  ;  and  all  that  we 
Need  wish  besides  is  perpetuity." 

And,  after  indulging  in  various  explanations  of  the  reason  why 
"  Nature  "  showed  no  prodigies  at  the  birth  of  the  future  patron  of 
Judge  Jeffreys,  which  if  he  did  not  believe  them,  are  lies,  and  if 
he  did,  are  very  like  blasphemies,  declares  that  the  infant  is 

"  A  son  of  Mirth, 
Of  Peace  and  Friendship;  'tis  a  quiet  birth." 

Nor,  again,  if  spirits  in  the  other  world  have  knowledge  of  human 
affairs,  can  we  be  now  altogether  satisfied  with  his  augury  as  to 
the  capacities  of  the  New  England  Puritans, — 


110  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

"  They  are  good  silly  people ;  souls  that  will 
Be  cheated  without  trouble :  one  eye  is 
Put  out  with  zeal,  th'  other  with  ignorance, 
And  yet  they  think  they're  eagles." 

Whatsoever  were  the  faults  of  Cotton  Mather's  band  of  pioneers, 
and  they  were  many,  silliness  was  certainly  not  among  them. 
Bat  such  was  the  Court  fashion.  Any  insult,  however  shallow, 
ribald,  and  doggrel,  (and  all  these  terms  are  just  of  the  mock- 
Puritan  ballad  which  Sir  Christopher  sings  in  The  Ordinary, 
just  after  an  epithalamium  so  graceful  and  melodious,  though  a 
little  "  warm  "  in  tone,  as  to  really  be  out  of  place  in  such  a  fel 
low's  mouth,)  passes  current  against  men,  who  were  abroad  the 
founders  of  the  United  States,  and  the  forefathers  of  the  acutest 
and  most  enterprising  nation  on  earth,  and  who  at  home  proved 
themselves,  by  terrible  fact,  not  only  the  physically  stronger 
party,  but  the  more  cunning.  But  so  it  was  fated  to  be.  A  deep 
mist  of  conceit,  fed  by  the  shallow  breath  of  parasites,  players, 
and  pedants,  wrapt  that  unhappy  Court  in  blind  security,  till  "  the 
breaking  was  as  the  swelling  out  of  a  high  wall,  which  cometh 
suddenly  in  an  instant.'* 

"  But  after  all,  what  Poetry  and  Art  there  was  in  that  day, 
good  or  bad,  all  belonged  to  the  royalists." 

All  ?  There  are  those  who  think  that,  if  mere  concettism  be 
a  part  of  poetry,  Quarles  is  a  ten  times  greater  poet  than  Cowley 
or  George  Herbert,  and  equal,  perhaps,  to  Vaughan  and  Withers. 
On  this  question,  and  on  the  real  worth  of  the  seventeenth  century 
lyrists,  something  may  be  said  hereafter  in  this  Review.  Mean 
while,  there  are  those,  too,  who  believe  John  Bunyan,  considered 
simply  as  an  artist,  to  be  the  greatest  dramatic  author  whom 
England  has  seen  since  Shakspeare ;  and  there  linger,  too,  in  the 
libraries  and  the  ears  of  men,  words  of  one  John  Milton.  He 
was  no  rigid  hater  of  the  beautiful,  merely  because  it  was  heathen 
and  popish ;  no  more,  indeed,  were  many  highly-educated  and 
highly-born  gentlemen  of  the  Long  Parliament;  no  more  was 
Cromwell  himself,  whose  delight  was  (if  we  may  trust  that  dou 
ble  renegade  Waller,)  to  talk  over  with  him  the  worthies  of 
Rome  and  Greece,  and  who  is  said  (and  we  believe  truly)  to 
have  preserved  for  the  nation  Raphael's  cartoons,  and  Andrea 
Mantegna's  triumph,  when  Charles'  pictures  were  sold.  But 
Milton  had  steeped  his  whole  soul  in  romance.  He  had  felt  the 
beauty  and  glory  of  the  chivalrous  middle  age  as  deeply  as  Shak 
speare  himself;  he  had  as  much  classical  lore  as  any  Oxford 
pedant.  He  felt  to  his  heart's  core,  (for  he  sang  of  it,  and  had 
he  not  felt  it  he  would  only  have  written  of  it,)  the  magnificence 


PLAYS   AND   PURITANS.  HI 

and  worth  of  really  high  art,  of  the  drama  when  it  was  worthy 
of  man  and  of  itself. 

"  Of  gorgeous  tragedy, 
Presenting  Thebes,  or  Pelops'  line, 
Or  the  tale  of  Troy  divine, 
And  what,  though  rare  of  later  age, 
Ennobled  hath  the  later  stage." 

No  poet,  perhaps,  shows  wider  and  truer  sympathy  with  every 
form  of  the  really  beautiful  in  art,  and  nature,  and  history  ;  and 
yet  he  was  a  Puritan. 

Yes,  Milton  was  a  Puritan ;  one,  who  instead  of  trusting  him 
self,  and  his  hopes  of  the  universe,  to  second-hand  hearsays,  sys 
tems,  and  traditions,  had  looked  God's  Word  and  his  own  soul 
in  the  face,  and  determined  to  act  on  that  which  he  had  found. 
And  therefore  it  is,  that  to  open  his  works  at  any  stray  page, 
after  these  effeminate  Carolists,  is  like  falling  asleep  in  a  stifling 
city  drawing-room,  amid  Rococo  French  furniture,  not  without 
untidy  traces  of  last  night's  ball,  and  awaking  in  an  alpine  valley, 
amid  the  scent  of  sweet  cyclamens  and  pine  boughs,  to  the  music 
of  trickling  rivulets  and  shouting  hunters,  and  to  see  above  your 
head  the  dark  cathedral  aisles  of  mighty  pines,  and  here  and 
there,  above  them  and  beyond,  the  spotless  peaks  of  everlasting 
snow  ;  while  far  beneath  your  feet — 

"  The  hemisphere  of  earth,  in  clearest  ken, 
Stretched  to  the  amplest  reach  of  prospect,  lies." 

Take  any, — the  most  hackneyed  passage  of  Comus,  the  Allegro, 
the  Penseroso,  the  Paradise  Lost,  and  see  the  freshness,  the 
sweetness,  and  the  simplicity,  which  is  strangely  combined  with 
the  pomp,  the  self-restraint,  the  earnestness  of  every  word  ;  take 
him  even,  as  an  experiment-am  crucis,  when  he  trenches  upon 
ground  heathen  and  questionable,  and  tries  the  court  poets  at 
their  own  weapons, — 

"  Or  whether,  (as  some  sages  sing,) 
The  frolic  wind  that  breathes  the  spring, 
Zephyr  with  Aurora  playing, 
As  he  met  her  once  a-maying, 
There  on  beds  of  violets  blue, 
And  fresh-blown  roses  washed  in  dew  " 

but  why  quote  what  all  the  world  knows  ? — Where  shall  we  find 
such  real  mirth,  ease,  sweetness,  dance  and  song  of  words  in  any 
thing  written  for  five-and-twenty  years  before  him  ?  True,  he 
was  no  great  dramatist.  He  never  tried  to  be  one  :  but  there 
was  no  one  in  his  generation  who  could  have  written  either 
Comus  or  Samson  Agonistes.  And  if,  as  is  commonly  believed, 


112  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

and  as  his  countenance  seems  to  indicate,  he  was  deficient  in 
humour,  so  were  his  contemporaries,  with  the  sole  exception  of 
Cartwright.  Witty  he  could  be,  and  bitter:  but  he  did  not  live 
in  a  really  humorous  age;  and  if  he  has  'none  of  the  rollicking 
fun  of  the  fox-hound  puppy,  at  least  he  has  none  of  the  obscene 
gibber  of  the  ape. 

After  all,  the  great  fact  stands,  that  the  only  lasting  poet  of 
that  generation  was  a  Puritan ;  one,  who,  if  he  did  not  write 
dramas  in  sport,  at  least  acted  dramas  in  earnest.  For  drama 
means,  etymologically,  action  and  doing  ;  and  of  the  drama  there 
are,  and  always  will  be,  two  kinds :  one  the  representative,  the 
other  the  actual ;  and  for  a  world  wherein  there  is  no  superabun 
dance  of  good  deeds,  the  latter  will  be  always  the  better  kind. 
It  is  good  to  represent  heroical  action  in  verse,  and  on  the  stage : 
it  is  good  to  "  purify,"  as  old  Aristotle  has  it,  "  the  affections  by 
pity  and  terror."  There  is  an  ideal  tragedy,  and  an  ideal  comedy 
also,  which  one  can  imagine  as  an  integral  part  of  the  highest 
Christian  civilization.  But  when  "  Christian "  tragedy  sinks 
below  the  standard  of  heathen  Greek  tragedy ;  when,  instead  of 
setting  forth  heroical  deeds,  it  teaches  the  audience  new  possi 
bilities  of  crime,  and  new  excuses  for  those  crimes  ;  when,  instead 
of  purifying  the  affections  by  pity  and  terror,  it  confounds  the 
moral  sense  by  exciting  pity  and  terror  merely  for  the  sake  of 
excitement,  careless  whether  they  be  well  or  ill  directed,  then  it 
is  of  the  devil,  and  the  sooner  it  returns  to  its  father,  the  better 
for  mankind.  When,  again,  comedy,  instead  of  stirring  a  divine 
scorn  of  baseness,  or  even  a  kindly  and  indulgent  smile  at  the 
weaknesses  and  oddities  of  humanity,  learns  to  make  a  mock  of 
sin, — to  find  excuses  for  the  popular  frailties  wrhich  it  pretends 
to  expose, — then  it  also  is  of  the  devil,  and  to  the  devil  let  it  go ; 
while  honest  and  earnest  men,  who  have  no  such  exceeding  love 
of  "Art,"  that  they  must  needs  have  bad  art  rather  than  none  at 
all,  do  the  duty  which  lies  nearest  them,  amid  clean  whitewash 
and  honest  prose.  The  whole  theory  of  "Art,  its  dignity  and 
vocation,"  seems  to  us  at  times  questionable,  if  coarse  facts  are 
to  be  allowed  to  weigh,  (as  we  suppose  they  are,)  against  deli 
cate  theories.  If  we  are  to  judge  by  the  examples  of  Italy,  the 
country  which  has  been  most  of  all  devoted  to  the  practice  of 
"Art,"  and  by  that  of  Germany,  the  country  which  has  raised  the 
study  of  Art  into  a  science,  then  a  nation  is  not  necessarily  free, 
strong,  moral,  or  happy,  because  it  can  "  represent "  facts,  or  can 
understand  how  other  people  have  represented  them.  We  do 
not  hesitate  to  go  further,  and  to  say,  that  the  present  imbecility 
of  Germany  is  to  be  traced  in  a  great  degree  to  that  pernicious 
habit  of  mind  which  makes  her  educated  men  fancy  it  enough  to 


PLAYS   AND  PUEITANS.  113 

represent  noble  thoughts  and  feelings,  or  to  analyze  the  repre 
sentations  of  them :  while  they  do  not  bestir  themselves,  or 
dream  that  there  is  the  least  moral  need  for  bestirring  them 
selves,  toward  putting  these  thoughts  and  feelings  into  practice. 
Goethe  herein  is  indeed  the  typical  German  :  God  grant  that  no 
generation  may  ever  see  such  a  typical  Englishman ;  and  that 
our  race,  remembering  ever  that  the  golden  age  of  the  English 
drama  was  one  of  private  immorality,  public  hypocrisy,  ecclesi 
astical  pedantry,  and  regal  tyranny,  and  ended  in  the  temporary 
downfall  of  Church  and  Crown,  may  be  more  ready  to  do  fine 
things,  than  to  write  fine  books  ;  and  act  in  their  lives,  as  those 
old  Puritans  did,  a  drama  which  their  descendants  may  be  glad 
to  put  on  paper  for  them,  long  after  they  are  dead. 

For  surely  these  Puritans  were  dramatic  enough,  poetic  enough, 
picturesque  enough.  We  do  not  speak  of  such  fanatics  as  Balfour  of 
Burley,  or  any  other  extravagant  person  whom  it  may  have  suited 
Walter  Scott  to  take  as  a  typical  personage.  We  speak  of  the  aver 
age  Puritan  nobleman,  gentleman,  merchant,  or  farmer,  and  hold 
him  to  have  been  a  picturesque  and  poetical  man, — a  man  of 
higher  imagination  and  deeper  feeling  than  the  average  of  Court 
poets,  and  a  man  of  sound  taste  also.  What  is  to  be  said  for  his 
opinions  about  the  stage,  has  been  seen  already ;  but  it  seems  to 
have  escaped  most  persons'  notice,  that  either  all  England  is 
grown  very  foolish,  or  the  Puritan  opinions  on  .several  matters 
have  been  justified  by  time. 

On  the  matter  of  the  stage,  the  world  has  certainly  come  over 
to  their  way  of  thinking.  Few  educated  men  now  think  it  worth 
while  to  go  to  see  any  play,  and  that  exactly  for  the  same  rea 
sons  as  the  Puritans  put  forward ;  and  still  fewer  educated  men 
think  it  wTorth  while  to  write  plays  :  finding  that  since  the  grosser 
excitements  of  the  imagination  have  become  forbidden  themes, 
there  is  really  very  little  to  write  about. 

But  in  the  matter  of  dress  and  of  manners,  the  Puritan  triumph 
has  been  complete.  Even  their  worst  enemies  have  come  over 
to  their  side,  and  "  the  whirligig  of  Time  has  brought  in  his 
revenges." 

Their  canons  of  taste  have  become  those  of  all  England,  and 
High  Churchmen,  who  still  call  them  round-heads  and  cropped 
ears,  go  about  rounder-headed  and  closer  cropt  than  they  ever 
went.  They  held  it  more  rational  to  cut  the  hair  to  a  comforta 
ble  length  than  to  wear  effeminate  curls  down  the  back.  And 
we  cut  ours  much  shorter  than  they  ever  did.  They  held,  (with 
the  Spaniards,  then  the  finest  gentlemen  in  the  world,)  that  sad, 
i.  c.  dark  colours,  above  all  black,  were  the  fittest  for  stately  and 
earnest  gentlemen.  We  all,  from  the  Tractarian  to  the  Any- 


114  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

thingarian,  are  exactly  of  the  same  opinion.  They  held  that 
lace,  perfumes,  and  jewelry  on  a  man  were  marks  of  unmanly 
foppishness  and  vanity  ;  and  so  hold  the  finest  gentlemen  in 
England  now.  They  thought  it  equally  absurd  and  sinful  for  a 
man  to  carry  his  income  on  his  back,  and  bedizen  himself  out  in 
reds,  blues,  and  greens,  ribbons,  knots,  slashes,  and  "  treble  quad 
ruple  dsedalian  ruffs,  built  up  on  iron  and  timber,  (a  fact,)  which 
have  more  arches  in  them  for  pride  than  London  Bridge  for 
use."  We,  if  we  met  such  a  ruffed  and  ruffled  worthy  as  used  to 
swagger  by  hundreds  up  and  down  Paul's  Walk,  not  knowing 
how  to  get  a  dinner,  much  less  to  pay  his  tailor,  should  look  on 
him  as  firstly  a  fool,  and  secondly  a  swindler ;  while,,  if  we  met 
an  old  Puritan,  we  should  consider  him  a  man  gracefully  and 
picturesquely  drest,  but  withal  in  the  most  perfect  sobriety  of 
good  taste ;  and  when  we  discovered,  (as  we  probably  should,) 
over  and  above,  that  the  harlequin  cavalier  had  a  box  of  salve 
and  a  pair  of  dice  in  one  pocket,  a  pack  of  cards  and  a  few  pawn 
brokers'  duplicates  in  the  other ;  that  his  thoughts  were  altogether 
of  citizens'  wives,  and  their  too  easy  virtue  ;  and  that  he  could 
not  open  his  mouth  without  a  dozen  oaths,  we  should  consider 
the  Puritan,  (even  though  he  did  quote  Scripture  somewhat 
through  his  nose,)  as  the  gentleman  ;  and  the  courtier  as  a  most 
offensive  specimen  of  the  "  snob  triumphant,"  glorying  in  his 
shame.  The  picture  is  not  ours,  nor  even  the  Puritan's.  It  is 
Bishop  Hall's,  Bishop  Earle's, — it  is  Beaumont's,  Fletcher's, 
Jonson's,  Shakspeare's, — the  picture  which  every  dramatist,  as 
well  as  satirist,  has  drawn  of  the  "  gallant "  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  No  one  can  read  those  writers  honestly  without  seeing 
that  the  Puritan,  and  not  the  Cavalier  conception  of  what  a 
British  gentleman  should  be,  is  the  one  accepted  by  the  whole 
nation  at  this  day. 

In  applying  the  same  canon  to  the  dress  of  women,  they  were 
wrong.  As  in  other  matters,  they  had  hold  of  one  pole  of  a 
double  truth,  and  erred  in  applying  it  exclusively  to  all  cases. 
But  there  are  two  things  to  be  said  for  them ;  first,  that  the 
dress  of  that  day  was  palpably  an  incentive  to  the  profligacy  of 
that  day,  and  therefore  had  to  be  protested  against ;  in  these 
more  moral  times,  ornaments  and  fashions  may  be  harmlessly 
used,  which  then  could  not  be  used  without  harm.  And  next, 
it  is  undeniable  that  sober  dressing  is  more  and  more  becoming 
the  fashion  among  well-bred  women,  and  that  among  them,  too, 
the  Puritan  canons  are  gaining  ground. 

We  have  just  said  that  the  Puritans  held  too  exclusively  to 
one  pole  of  a  double  truth.  They  did  so,  no  doubt,  in  their 
hatred  of  the  drama.  Their  belief  that  human  relations  were,  if 


PLAYS   AND   PURITANS.  H5 

not  exactly  sinful,  at  least  altogether  carnal  and  unspiritual, 
prevented  their  conceiving  the  possibility  of  any  truly  Christian 
drama,  and  led  them  at  times  into  strange  and  sad  errors,  like 
that  New  England  ukase  of  Cotton  Mather's,  who  punished  the 
woman  who  should  kiss  her  infant  on  the  Sabbath  day.  Yet 
their  extravagancies  on  this  point  were  but  the  honest  revulsion 
from  other  extravagancies  on  the  opposite  side.  If  the  undis- 
tinguishing  and  immoral  Autotheism  of  the  playwrights,  and 
the  luxury  and  heathendom  of  the  higher  classes,  first  in  Italy 
and  then  in  England,  were  the  natural  revolt  of  the  human  mind 
against  the  Manichasism  of  Popish  monkery,  then  the  severity 
and  exclusiveness  of  Puritanism  was  a  natural  and  necessary 
revolt  against  that  luxury  and  immorality ;  a  protest  for  man's 
God-given  superiority  over  nature,  against  that  Naturalism  which 
threatened  to  end  in  sheer  brutality.  While  Italian  prelates 
have  found  an  apologist  in  Mr.  Roscoe,  and  English  playwrights 
in  Mr.  Gilford,  the  old  Puritans,  who  felt  and  asserted,  however 
extravagantly,  that  there  was  an  eternal  law,  which  was  above 
all  Borgias,  and  Machiavels,  Stuarts,  and  Fletchers,  have  surely 
a  right  to  a  fair  trial.  If  they  went  too  far  in  their  contempt  for 
humanity,  certainly  no  one  interfered  to  set  them  right.  The 
Anglicans  of  that  time,  who  held  intrinsically  the  same  anthro- 
pologic  notions,  and  yet  wanted  the  courage  and  sincerity  to 
carry  them  out  as  honestly,  neither  could  nor  would  throw  any 
light  upon  the  controversy ;  and  the  only  class  who  sided  with 
the  poor  playwrights  in  asserting  that  there  were  more  things  in 
man,  and  more  excuses  for  man,  than  were  dreamt  of  in  Prynne's 
philosophy,  were  the  Jesuit  Casuists,  who,  by  a  fatal  perverse- 
ness,  used  all  their  little  knowledge  of  human  nature  to  the  same 
undesirable  purpose  as  the  playwrights  ;  namely,  to  prove  how 
it  was  possible  to  commit  every  conceivable  sinful  action  without 
sinning.  No  wonder  that  in  an  age  in  which  courtiers  and  theatre 
haunters  were  turning  Romanists  by  the  dozen,  and  the  priest- 
ridden  Queen  was  the  chief  patroness  of  the  theatre,  the  Puritans 
should  have  classed  players  and  Jesuits  in  the  same  category, 
and  deduced  the  parentage  of  both  alike  from  the  father  of  lies. 

But  as  for  these  Puritans  having  been  merely  the  sour,  nar 
row,  inhuman  persons  they  are  vulgarly  supposed  to  have  been, 
credat  Judceus.  There  were  sour  and  narrow  men  enough  among 
them ;  so  there  were  in  the  opposite  party.  No  Puritan  could 
have  had  less  poetry  in  him,  less  taste,  less  feeling,  than  Laud 
himself.  But  is  there  no  poetry  save  words  ?  no  drama  save 
that  which  is  presented  on  the  stage  ?  Is  this  glorious  earth, 
and  the  souls  of  living  men,  mere  prose,  as  long  as  carent  vate 
sacro,  who  will,  forsooth,  do  them  the  honour  to  make  poetry 


116  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

out  of  a  little  of  them,  (and  of  how  little  !)  by  translating  them 
into  words,  which  he  himself,  just  in  proportion  as  he  is  a  good 
poet,  will  confess  to  be  clumsy,  tawdry,  ineffectual  ?  Was  there 
no  poetry  in  these  Puritans,  because  they  wrote  no  poetry  ?  We 
do  not  mean  now  the  unwritten  tragedy  of  the  battle-psalm  and 
the  charge ;  but  simple  idyllic  poetry  and  quiet  home-drama, 
love-poetry  of  the  heart  and  the  hearth,  and  the  beauties  of  every 
day  human  life  ?  Take  the  most  commonplace  of  them :  was 
Zeal-for-Truth  Thoresby,  of  Thoresby  Rise  in  Deeping  Fen, 
because  his  father  had  thought  fit  to  give  him  an  ugly  and  silly 
name,  the  less  of  a  noble  lad?  Did  his  name  prevent  his  being 
six  feet  high  ?  Were  his  shoulders  the  less  broad  for  it,  his 
cheek  the  less  ruddy  for  it  ?  He  wore  his  flaxen  hair  of  the  same 
length  that  every  one  now  wears  theirs,  instead  of  letting  it  hang 
half-way  to  his  waist  in  essenced  curls ;  but  was  he  therefore 
the  less  of  a  true  Viking's  son,  bold-hearted  as  his  sea-roving 
ancestors,  who  won  the  Danelagh  by  Canute's  side,  and  settled 
there  on  Thoresby  Rise,  to  grow  wheat  and  breed  horses,  gene 
ration  succeeding  generation,  in  the  old  moated  grange  ?  He 
carried  a  Bible  in  his  jack-boots  ;  but  did  that  prevent  him,  as 
Oliver  rode  past  him  with  an  approving  smile  on  Naseby  field, 
thinking  himself  a  very  handsome  fellow,  with  his  mustache  and 
imperial,  and  bright-red  coat,  and  cuirass  well  polished,  in  spite 
of  many  a  dint,  as  he  sate  his  father's  great  black  horse  as  grace 
fully  and  firmly  as  any  long-locked  and  essenced  cavalier  in  front 
of  him  ?  Or  did  it  prevent  him  thinking  too,  for  a  moment,  with 
a  throb  of  the  'heart,  that  sweet  Cousin  Patience,  far  away  at 
home,  could  she  but  see  him,  might  have  the  same  opinion  of 
him  as  he  had  of  himself  ?  Was  he  the  worse  for  the  thought  ? 
He  was  certainly  not  the  worse  for  checking  it  the  next  instant, 
with  manly  shame  for  letting  such  "  carnal  vanities  "  rise  in  his 
heart,  while  he  was  "  doing  the  Lord's  work "  in  the  teeth  of 
death  and  hell :  but  was  there  no  poetry  in  him  then  ?  No 
poetry  in  him,  five  minutes  after,  as  the  long  rapier  swung  round 
his  head,  redder  and  redder  at  every  sweep  ?  We  are  befooled 
by  names.  Call  him  Crusader  instead  of  Roundhead,  and  he 
seems  at  once  (granting  him  only  sincerity,  which  he  had,  and 
that  of  a  right  awful  kind)  as  complete  a  knight-errant  as  ever 
watched  and  prayed,  ere  putting  on  his  spurs,  in  fantastic  Gothic 
chapel,  beneath  "  storied  windows  richly  dight."  Was  there  no 
poetry  in  him,  either,  half  an  hour  afterwards,  as  he  lay  bleeding 
across  the  corpse  of  the  gallant  horse,  waiting  for  his  turn  with 
the  surgeon,  and  fumbled  for  the  Bible  in  his  boot,  and  tried  to 
hum  a  psalm,  and  thought  of  Cousin  Patience,  and  his  father  and 
his  mother,  and  how  they  would  hear,  at  least,  that  he  had  played 


PLAYS   AND   PURITANS.  U7 

the  man  in  Israel  that  day,  and  resisted  unto  blood,  striving 
against  sin  and  the  Man  of  Sin  ? 

And  was  there  no  poetry  in  him,  too,  as  he  came  wearied 
along  Thoresby  dyke,  in  the  quiet  autumn  eve,  home  to  the 
house  of  his  forefathers,  and  saw  afar  off  the  knot  of  tall  poplars 
rising  over  the  broad  misty  flat,  and  the  one  great  abele  tossing 
its  sheets  of  silver  in  the  dying  gusts,  and  knew  that  they  stood 
before  his  father's  door  ?  Who  can  tell  all  the  pretty  child- 
memories  which  flitted  across  his  brain  at  that  sight,  and  made 
him  forget  that  he  was  a  wounded  cripple  ?  There  is  the  dyke 
where  he  and  his  brothers  snared  the  great  pike  which  stole  the 
ducklings — how  many  years  ago  ?  while  pretty  little  Patience 
stood  by  trembling,  and  shrieked  at  each  snap  of  the  brute's  wide 
jaws  ;  and  there — down  that  long  dark  lode,  ruffling  with  crimson 
in  the  sunset  breeze,  he  and  his  brother  skated  home  in  triumph 
with  Patience  when  his  uncle  died.  What  a  day  that  was  ! 
when,  in  the  clear,  bright  winter  noon,  they  laid  the  gate  upon 
the  ice,  and  tied  the  beef-bones  under  the  four  corners,  and 
packed  little  Patience  on  it. — How  pretty  she  looked,  though  her 
eyes  were  red  with  weeping,  as  she  peeped  out  from  among  the 
heap  of  blankets  and  horse-hides,  and  how  merrily  their  long 
fen-runners  whistled  along  the  ice-lane,  between  the  high  banks 
of  sighing  reed,  as  they  towed  home  their  new  treasure  in  triumph, 
at  a  pace  like  the  race  horse's,  to  the  dear  old  home  among  the 
poplar-trees.  And  now  he  was  going  home  to  meet  her,  after 
a  mighty  victory,  a  deliverance  from  heaven,  second  only  in  his 
eyes  to  that  Red-Sea  one.  Was  there  no  poetry  in  his  heart  at 
that  thought  ?  Did  not  the  glowing  sunset,  and  the  reed-beds 
which  it  transfigured  before  him  into  sheets  of  golden  flame, 
seem  tokens  that  the  glory  of  God  was  going  before  him  in  his 
path  ?  Did  not  the  sweet  clamour  of  the  wild-fowl,  gathering 
for  one  rich  paean  ere  they  sank  into  rest,  seem  to  him  as 
God's  bells  chiming  him  home  in  triumph,  with  peals  sweeter 
and  bolder  than  those  of  Lincoln  or  Peterborough  steeple-house  ? 
Did  not  the  very  lapwing,  as  she  tumbled,  softly  wailing,  before 
his  path,  as  she  did  years  ago,  seem  to  welcome  the  wanderer 
home  in  the  name  of  heaven  ? 

Fair  Patience,  too,  though  she  was  a  Puritan,  yet  did  not  her 
cheek  flush,  her  eye  grow  dim,  like  any  other  girl's,  as  she  saw 
far  off  the  red-coat,  like  a  sliding  spark  of  fire,  coming  slowly 
along  the  strait  fen-bank,  and  fled  up  stairs  into  her  chamber  to 
pray,  half  that  it  might  be,  half  that  it  might  not  be.  he  ?  Was 
there  no  happy  storm  of  human  tears  and  human  laughter  when 
he  entered  the  court-yard  gate  ?  Did  not  the  old  dog  lick  his 
Puritan  hand  as  lovingly  as  if  it  had  been  a  Cavalier's  ?  Did 


118  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

not  lads  and  lasses  run  out  shouting  ?  Did  not  the  old  yeoman 
father  hug  him,  weep  over  him,  hold  him  at  arm's  length,  and 
hug  him  again,  as  heartily  as  any  other  John  Bull,  even  though 
the  next  moment  he  called  all  to  kneel  down  and  thank  Him  who 
had  sent  his  boy  home  again,  after  bestowing  on  him  the  grace 
to  bind  kings  in  chains  and  nobles  with  links  of  iron,  and  con 
tend  to  death  for  the  faith  delivered  to  the  saints  ?  And  did  not 
Zeal-fbr-Truth  look  about  as  wistfully  for  Patience  as  any  other 
man  would  have  done,  longing  to  see  her,  yet  not  daring  even  to 
ask  for  her  ?  And  when  she  came  down  at  last,  was  she  the 
less  lovely  in  his  eyes,  because  she  came,  not  flaunting  with  bare 
bosom,  in  tawdry  finery  and  paint,  but  shrouded  close  in  coif 
and  pinner,  hiding  from  all  the  world  beauty  which  was  there 
still,  but  was  meant  for  one  alone,  and  that  only  if  God  willed, 
in  God's  good  time  ?  And  was  there  no  faltering  of  their  voices, 
no  light  in  their  eyes,  no  trembling  pressure  of  their  hands,  which 
said  more,  and  was  more,  ay,  and  more  beautiful  in  the  sight  of 
Him  who  made  them,  than  all  Herrick's  Dianemes,  Waller's 
Sacharissas,  flames,  darts,  posies,  love-knots,  anagrams,  and  the 
rest  of  the  insincere  cant  of  the  court  ?  What  if  Zeal-for-Truth 
had  never  strung  two  rhymes  together  in  his  life  ?  Did  not  his 
heart  go  for  inspiration  to  a  loftier  Helicon,  wrhen  it  whispered 
to  itself,  "  My  love,  my  dove,  my  undefiled  is  but  one,"  than  if 
he  had  filled  pages  with  sonnets,  about  Venuses,  and  Cupids, 
love-sick  shepherds  and  cruel  nymphs  ? 

And  was  there  no  poetry,  true  idyllic  poetry,  as  of  Longfellow's 
Evangeline  itself,  in  that  trip  round  the  old  farm  next  morning  ; 
when  Zeal-for-Truth,  after  looking  over  every  heifer,  and  peep 
ing  into  every  stye,  would  needs  canter  down  by  his  father's  side 
to  the  horse-fen,  with  his  arm  in  a  sling ;  while  the  partridges 
whirred  up  before  them,  and  the  lurchers  flashed  like  gray  snakes 
after  the  hare,  and  the  colts  came  whinnying  round  with  staring 
eyes  and  streaming  manes,  and  the  two  chatted  on  in  the  same 
sober  business-like  English  tone,  alternately  of  "  The  Lord's 
great  dealings,"  by  General  Cromwell,  the  pride  of  all  honest 
fen-men,  and  the  price  of  troop-horses  at  the  next  Horncastle 
fair? 

Poetry  in  those  old  Puritans?  Why  not  ?  They  were  men 
of  like  passions  with  ourselves.  They  loved,  they  married,  they 
brought  up  children  ;  they  feared,  they  sinned,  they  sorrowed, 
they  fought — they  conquered.  There  was  poetry  enough  in 
them,  be  sure,  though  they  acted  it  like  men,  instead  of  singing 
it  like  birds. 


BURNS  AND   HIS   SCHOOL. 


BURNS  AND  HIS  SCHOOL. 

[Nor A  British  Review.} 

FOUR  faces  among  the  portraits  of  modern  men,  great  or 
small,  strike  us  as  supremely  beautiful ;  not  merely  in  expres 
sion,  but  in  the  form  and  proportion  and  harmony  of  features  : 
Shakspeare,  Raffaelle,  Goethe,  Burns.  One  would  expect  it  to 
be  so  ;  for  the  mind  makes  the  body,  not  the  body  the  mind  ;  and 
the  inward  beauty  seldom  fails  to  express  itself  in  the  outward, 
as  a  visible  sign  of  the  invisible  grace  or  disgrace  of  the  wearer. 
Not  that  it  is  so  always.  A  Paul,  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  may 
be  ordained  to  be  "  in  presence  weak,  in  speech  contemptible," 
hampered  by  some  thorn  in  the  flesh — to  interfere  apparently 
with  the  success  of  his  mission,  perhaps  for  the  same  wise  pur 
pose  of  Providence  which  sent  Socrates  to  the  Athenians,  the 
worshippers  of  physical  beauty,  in  the  ugliest  of  human  bodies, 
that  they,  or  rather  those  of  them  to  whom  eyes  to  see  had  been 
given,  might  learn  that  soul  is  after  all  independent  of  matter, 
and  not  its  creature  and  its  slave.  But,  in  the  generality  of 
cases,  physiognomy  is  a  sound  and  faithful  science,  and  tells  us, 
if  not,  alas  !  what  the  man  might  have  been,  still  what  he  has 
become.  Yet  even  this  former  problem,  what  he  might  have 
been,  may  often  be  solved  for  us  by  youthful  portraits,  before  sin 
and  sorrow  and  weakness  have  had  their  will  upon  the  features  ; 
and,  therefore,  when  we  spoke  of  these  four  beautiful  faces,  we 
alluded,  in  each  case,  to  the  earliest  portraits  of  each  genius  which 
we  could  recollect.  Placing  them  side  by  side,  we  must  be 
allowed  to  demand  for  that  of  Robert  Burns  an  honourable  sta 
tion  among  them.  Of  Shakspeare's  we  do  not  speak,  for  it 
seems  to  us  to  combine  in  itself  the  elements  of  all  -the  other 
three ;  but  of  the  rest,  we  question  whether  Burns's  be  not, 
after  all,  if  not  the  noblest,  still  the  most  lovable — the  most  like 

1.  Elliott's  Poems.  2.  Poems  of  Robert  Nicoll.  3.  Life  and  Poems  of  John 
Bethune.  4.  Memoirs  of  Alexander  Bethune.  By  W.  M'CoMBiE.  5.  Rhymes 
and  Recollections  of  a  Handloom  Weaver.  By  WILLIAM  THOM  of  Inverury. 
6.  The  Puryatory  of  Suicides.  By  THOMAS  COOFEK.  7.  The  -Book  of  Scottish 
Song.  By  ALEXAMUKH  WHITELAW. 


120  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

what  we  should  wish  that  of  a  teacher  of  men  to  be.  Raffaelle — 
the  most  striking  portrait  of  him,  perhaps,  is  the  full-face  pencil 
sketch  by  his  own  hand  in  the  Taylor  Gallery  at  Oxford — • 
though  without  a  taint  of  littleness  or  effeminacy,  is  soft,  melan 
choly,  formed  entirely  to  receive  and  to  elaborate  in  silence. 
His  is  a  face  to  be  kissed,  not  worshipped.  Goethe,  even  in 
his  earliest  portraits,  looks  as  if  his  expression  depended  too 
much  on  his  own  will.  There  is  a  self-conscious  power,  and 
purpose,  and  self-restraint,  and  all  but  scorn,  upon  those  glorious 
lineaments,  which  might  win  worship,  and  did,  but  not  love, 
except  as  the  child  of  enthusiasm  or  of  relationship.  But  Burns's 
face,  to  judge  of  it  by  the  early  portrait  of  him  by  Nasmyth, 
must  have  been  a  face  like  that  of  Joseph  of  old,  of  whom  the 
Rabbis  relate,  that  he  was  literally  mobbed  by  the  Egyptian 
ladies  whenever  he  walked  the  streets.  The  magic  of  that  coun 
tenance,  making  Burns  at  once  tempter  and  tempted,  may  explain 
many  a  sad  story.  The  features  certainly  are  not  as  regular  or 
well-proportioned  as  they  might  be  ;  there  is  no  superabundance 
of  the  charm  of  mere  animal  health  in  the  outline  or  colour ; 
but  the  marks  of  intellectual  beauty  in  the  face  are  of  the  highest 
order,  capable  of  being  but  too  triumphant  among  a  people  of 
deep  thought  and  feeling.  The  lips,  ripe,  yet  not  coarse  or  loose, 
full  of  passion  and  the  faculty  of  enjoyment,  are  parted,  as  if 
forced  to  speak,  by  the  inner  fulness  of  the  heart,  the  features  are 
rounded,  rich,  and  tender,  and  yet  the  bones  show  thought  mas 
sively  and  manfully  everywhere ;  the  eyes  laugh  out  upon  you 
with  boundless  good  humour  and  sweetness,  with  simple,  eager, 
gentle  surprise — a  gleam  as  of  the  morning  star,  looking  forth 
upon  the  wonder  of  a  new-born  world — altogether 

"  A  station  like  the  herald  Mercury, 
New  lighted  on  a  heaven-kissing  hill." 

Bestow  on  such  a  man  the  wittiest  and  most  winning  elo 
quence — a  rich  flow  of  spirits  and  fulness  of  health  and  life — a 
deep  sense  of  wonder  and  beauty  in  the  earth  and  man — an  in 
stinct  of  the  dynamic  and  supernatural  laws  which  underlie  and 
vivify  this  material  universe  and  its  appearances,  healthy,  yet 
irregular  and  unscientific,  only  not  superstitious — turn  hini  loose 
in  any  country  in  Europe,  during  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  it  will  not  be  difficult,  alas  !  to  cast  his  horoscope. 

And  what  an  age  in  which  to  be  turned  loose ! — for  loose  he 
must  go,  to  solve  the  problem  of  existence  for  himself.  The 
grand  simple  old  Scottish  education  which  he  got  from  his  par 
ents  must  prove  narrow  and  unsatisfying  for  so  rich  and  mani 
fold  a  character;  not  because  it  was  in  itself  imperfect;  not 


BURNS  AND  HIS  SCHOOL.  ,.          121 

because  it  did  not  contain  implicitly  all  things  necessary  for  his 
"  salvation  " — in  every  sense,  all  laws  which  he  might  require 
for  his  after-life  guidance ;  but  because  it  contained  so  much  of 
them  as  yet  only  implicitly  ;  because  it  was  not  yet  conscious  of 
its  own  breadth  and  depth,  and  power  of  satisfying  the  new 
doubts  and  cravings  of  such  minds  and  such  times  as  Burns's. 
It  may  be  that  Burns  was  the  devoted  victim  by  whose  fall  it 
was  to  be  taught  that  it  must  awaken  and  expand  and  renew  its 
youth  in  shapes  equally  sound,  but  more  complex  and  scientific. 
But  it  had  not  done  so  then.  And  when  Burns  found  himself 
gradually  growing  beyond  his  father's  teaching  in  one  direction, 
and  tempted  beyond  it  in  another  and  a  lower  one,  what  was 
there  in  those  times  to  take  up  his  education  at  the  point  where 
it  had  been  left  unfinished  ?  He  saw  around  him  in  plenty 
animal  good-nature  and  courage,  barbaric  honesty  and  hospital 
ity — more,  perhaps,  than  he  would  see  now  ;  for  the  upward 
progress  into  civilized  excellences  is  sure  to  be  balanced  by 
some  loss  of  savage  ones — but  all  reckless,  shallow,  above  all, 
drunken.  It  was  a  hard-drinking,  coarse,  materialist  age.  The 
higher  culture,  of  Scotland  especially,  was  all  but  exclusively 
French — not  a  good  kind,  while  Voltaire  and  Volney  still  re 
mained  unanswered,  and  Les  Liaisons  Dangereuses  were  ac 
cepted  by  all  young  gentlemen,  and  a  great  many  young  ladies, 
who  could  read  French,  as  the  best  account  of  the  relation  of  the 
sexes. 

Besides,  the  philosophy  of  that  day,  like  its  criticism,  was 
altogether  mechanical,  nay,  as  it  now  seems,  materialist  in  its 
ultimate  and  logical  results.  Criticism  was  outward,  and  of  the 
form  merely.  The  world  was  not  believed  to  be  already,  and  in 
itself,  mysterious  and  supernatural,  and  the  poet  was  not  defined 
as  the  man  who  could  see  and  proclaim  that  supernatural  ele 
ment.  Before  it  was  admired,  it  was  to  be  raised  above  nature 
into  the  region  of  "  the  picturesque,"  or  what  not ;  and  the  poet 
was  the  man  who  gave  it  this  factitious  and  superinduced  beauty, 
by  a  certain  "  kompsologia  "  and  "  meteoroepeia,"  called  "  poetic 
diction,"  now  happily  becoming  extinct,  mainly,  we  believe, 
under  the  influence  of  Burns,  although  he  himself  thought  it  his 
duty  to  bedizen  his  verses  therewith,  and  though  it  was  destined 
to  flourish  for  many  a  year  more  in  the  temple  of  the  father  of 
lies,  like  a  jar  of  paper  flowers  on  a  Popish  altar. 

No  wonder  that  in  such  a  time,  a  genius  like  Burns  should 
receive  not  only  no  guidance,  but  no  finer  appreciation.  True  ; 
he  was  admired,  petted,  flattered ;  for  that  the  man  was  wonder 
ful,  no  one  could  doubt.  But  we  question  whether  he  was 
understood  ;  whether,  if  that  very  flowery  and  magniloquent 

6 


122  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

style  which  we  now  consider  his  great  failing  had  been  away, 
he  would  not  have  been  passed  over  by  the  many  as  a  writer  of 
vulgar  doggrel.  True,  the  old  simple  ballad-muse  of  Scotland 
still  dropped  a  gem  from  her  treasures,  here  and  there,  even  in 
the  eighteenth  century  itself — witness  Auld  Robin  Gray.  But 
who  suspected  that  they  were  gems,  of  which  Scotland,  fifty 
years  afterwards,  would  be  prouder  and  more  greedy  than  of 
all  the  second-hand  French  culture  which  seemed  to  her  then 
the  highest  earthly  attainment  ?  The  review  of  Burns  in  an 
early  number  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  said  to  be  from  the 
pen  of  the  late  Lord  Jeffrey,  shows,  as  clearly  as  any  thing  can, 
the  utterly  inconsistent  and  bewildered  feeling  with  which  the 
world  must  have  regarded  such  a  phenomenon.  Alas !  there 
was  inconsistency  and  bewilderment  enough  in  the  phenomenon 
itself,  but  that  only  made  confusion  worse  confounded  ;  the  con 
fusion  was  already  there,  even  in  the  mind  of  the  more  practical 
literary  men,  who  ought,  one  would  have  thought,  also  to  have 
been  the  most  deep-sighted.  But  no.  The  reviewer  turns  the 
strange  thing  over  and  over,  and  inside  out — and  some  fifteen 
years  after  it  has  vanished  out  of  the  world,  having  said  out  its 
say  and  done  all  that  fit  had  to  do,  he  still  finds  it  too  utterly 
abnormal  to  make  up  his  mind  about  in  any  clear  or  consistent 
way,  and  gets  thoroughly  cross  with  it,  and  calls  it  hard  names, 
because  it  will  not  fit  into  any  established  pigeon-hole  or  drawer 
of ^ the  then  existing  anthropological  museum.  Burns  is  "  a  liter 
ary  prodigy,"  and  yet  it  is  "  a  derogation  "  to  him  to  consider 
him  as  one.  And  that  we  find,  not  as  we  should  have  expected, 
because  he  possessed  genius  which  would  have  made  success  a 
matter  of  course  in  any  rank,  but  because  he  was  so  well  edu 
cated — "  having  acquired  a  competent  knowledge  of  French, 
together  with  the  elements  of  Latin  and  Geometry,"  and  before 
he  had  composed  a  single  stanza,  was  '  far  more  intimately 
acquainted  with  Pope,  Shakspeare,  and  Thomson,  than  nine 
tenths  of  the  youths  who  leave  school  for  the  University,"  &c., 
&c. ; — in  short,  because  he  was  so  well  educated,  that  his  becom 
ing  Robert  Burns,  the  immortal  poet,  was  a  matter  of  course  and 
necessity.  And  yet,  a  page  or  two  on,  the  great  reason  why  it 
was  more  easy  for  Robert  Burns  the  cottar  to  become  an  original 
and  vigorous  poet,  rather  than  for  any  one  of  "  the  herd  of  schol 
ars  and  academical  literati,"  who  are  depressed  and  discouraged 
by  "  perusing  the  most  celebrated  writers,  and  conversing  with 
the  most  intelligent  judges,"  is  found  to  be,  that  "  the  literature 
and  refinement  of  the  age  does  not  exist  for  a  rustic  and  illiter 
ate  individual ;  and  consequently  the  present  time  is  to  him 
what  the  rude  times  of  old  were  to  the  vigorous  writers  who 


BURNS   AND   HIS   SCHOOL.  123 

adorned  them." — In  short,  the  great  reason  of  Robert  Burns's 
success  was  that  he  did  not  possess  that  education,  the  possession 
of  which  proves  him  to  be  no  prodigy,  though  the  review  begins 
by  calling  him  one,  and  coupling  him  with  Stephen  Duck  and 
Thomas  Dermody. 

Now  if  the  best  critic  of  the  age,  writing  fifteen  years  after 
Burns's  death,  found  himself  between  the  horns  of  such  a  dilem 
ma — which  indeed,  like  those  of  an  old  Arnee  bull,  meet  at  the 
points,  and  form  a  complete  circle  of  contradictions — what  must 
have  been  the  bewilderment  of  lesser  folk  during  the  prodigy's 
very  lifetime  ?  what  must,  indeed,  have  been  his  own  bewilder 
ment  at  himself,  however  manfully  he  may  have  kept  it  down? 
No  wonder  that  he  was  unguided,  either  by  himself  or  by  others. 
We  do  not  blame  them  ;  him  we  must  deeply  blame;  yet  not  as 
we  ought  to  blame  ourselves,  did  we  yield  in  the  least  to  those 
temptations  under  which  Burns  fell. 

Biographies  of  Burns,  and  those  good  ones,  according  to  the 
standard  of  biographies  in  these  days,  are  said  to  exist  ;  we 
cannot  say  that  we  have  as  yet  cared  to  read  them.  There  are 
several  other  biographies,  even  more  important,  to  be  read  first, 
when  they  are  written.  Shakspeare  has  found  as  yet  no  biog 
rapher  ;  has  not  even  left  behind  him  materials  for  a  biography, 
such  at  least  as  are  considered  worth  using.  Indeed,  we  ques 
tion  whether  such  a  biography  would  be  of  any  use  whatever  to 
the  world  ;  for  the  man  who  cannot,  by  studying  his  dramas  in 
some  tolerably  accurate  chronological  order,  and  using  as  a  run 
ning  accompaniment  and  closet  commentary  those  awe-inspiring 
sonnets  of  his,  attain  to  some  clear  notion  of  what  sort  of  life 
William  Shakspeare  must  have  led,  would  not  see  him  much 
the  clearer  for  many  folios  of  anecdote.  For  after  all,  the  best 
biography  of  every  sincere  man  is  sure  to  be  his  own  works  ; 
here  he  has  set  down,  "  transferred  as  in  a  figure,"  all  that  has 
happened  to  him,  inward  or  outward,  or  rather,  all  which  has 
formed  him,  produced  a  permanent  effect  upon  his  mind  and 
heart ;  and  knowing  that,  you  knowr  all  you  need  know,  and  are 
content,  being  glad  to  escape  the  personality  and  gossip  of  names, 
and  places,  and  of  dates  even,  except  in  as  far  as  they  enable 
you  to  place  one  step  of  his  mental  growth  before  or  after 
another.  Of  the  honest  man  this  holds  true  always  ;  and  almost 
always  of  the  dishonest  man,  the  man  of  cant,  affectation,  hypoc 
risy  ;  for  even  if  he  pretend  in  his  novel  or  his  poem  to  be  what 
he  is  not,  he  still  shows  you  thereby  what  he  thinks  he  ought  to 
have  been,  or  at  least  what  he  thinks  that  the  world  thinks  he 
ought  to  have  been,  and  confesses  to  you,  in  the  most  naive  and 
confidential  way,  like  one  who  talks  in  his  sleep,  what  learning 


124  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

he  has  or  has  not  had  ;  what  society  he  has  or  has  not  seen,  and 
that  in  the  very  act  of  trying  to  prove  the  contrary.  Nay,  the 
smaller  the  man  or  woman,  and  the  less  worth  deciphering  his 
biography,  the  more  surely  will  he  show  you,  if  you  have  eyes  to 
see  and  time  to  look,  what  sort  of  people  offended  him  twenty 
years  ago  ;  what  meanness  he  would  have  liked  "  to  indulge  in," 
if  he  had  dared,  when  young,  and  for  what  other  meanness  he 
relinquished  it,  as  he  grew  up  ;  of  what  periodical  he  stood  in 
awe  when  he  took  pen  in  hand,  and  so  forth.  Whether  his  books 
treat  of  love  or  political  economy,  theology  or  geology,  it  is  there, 
the  history  of  the  man  legibly  printed,  for  those  who  care  to  read 
it.  In  these  poems  and  letters  of  Burns,  we  apprehend,  is  to  be 
found  a  truer  history  than  any  anecdote  can  supply,  of  the  things 
which  happened  to  himself,  and  moreover  of  the  most  notable 
things  which  went  on  in  Scotland  between  1759  and  1796. 

This  latter  assertion  may  seem  startling,  when  we  consider 
that  we  find  in  these  poems  no  mention  whatsoever  of  the  dis 
coveries  of  steamboats  and  spinning-jennies,  the  rise  of  the  great 
manufacturing  cities,  the  revolution  in  Scottish  agriculture,  or 
even  in  Scottish  metaphysics.  But  after  all,  the  history  of  a 
nation  is  the  history  of  the  men,  and  not  of  the  things  thereof ; 
and  the  history  of  those  men  is  the  history  of  their  hearts,  and 
not  of  their  purses,  or  even  of  their  heads  ;  and  the  history  of  one 
man  who  has  felt  in  himself  the  heart  experiences  of  his  genera 
tion,  and  anticipated  many  belonging  to  the  next  generation,  is  so 
far  the  collective  history  of  that  generation,  and  of  much — no 
man  can  say  how  much — of  the  next  generation  ;  and  such  a 
man,  bearing  within  his  single  soul  a  generation  and  a  half  of 
working-men,  we  take  Robert  Burns  to  have  been  ;  and  his 
poems,  as  such,  a  contemporaneous  history  of  Scotland,  the  equal 
to  which  we  are  not  likely  to  see  written  for  this  generation,  or 
several  to  come. 

Such  a  man  sent  out  into  such  an  age,  would  naturally  have  a 
hard  and  a  confused  battle  to  fight,  would  probably,  unless  he  fell 
under  the  guidance  of  some  master  mind,  end  se  ipso  minor, 
stunted  and  sadly  deformed,  as  Burns  did.  His  works  are  after 
all  only  the  disjecta  membra  poetce  ;  hints  of  a  great  might-have- 
been.  Hints  of  the  keenest  and  most  dramatic  appreciation  of 
human  action  and  thought.  Hints  of  an  unbounded  fancy,  play 
ing  gracefully  in  the  excess  of  its  strength,  with  the  vastest 
images,  as  in  that  robe  of  the  Scottish  muse,  in  which 

"  Deep  lights  and  shades,  bold  mingling,  threw 

A  lustre  grand, 
And  seem'd  to  my  astonished  view 

A  well-known  land." 


BURNS  AND  HIS   SCHOOL.  125 

The  image,  and  the  next  few  stanzas  which  dilate  it,  might  be 
a  translation  from  Dante's  Paradiso,  so  broad,  terse,  vivid,  the 
painter's  touch. — Hints,  too,  of  a  humour,  which,  like  that  of 
Shakspeare,  rises  at  times  by  sheer  depth  of  insight  into  the  sub 
lime  ;  as  when 

"  Hornie  did  the  Laigh  Kirk  watch 
Just  like  a  winking  baudrons." — 

Hints  of  a  power  of  verbal  wit,  which,  had  it  been  sharpened 
in  such  a  perpetual  word-battle  as  that  amid  which  Shakspeare 
lived  from  the  age  of  twenty,  might  have  rivalled  Shakspeare's 
own  ;  which  even  now  asserts  its  force  by  a  hundred  little  never- 
to-be-forgotten  phrases  scattered  through  his  poems,  which  stick, 
like  barbed  arrows,  in  the  memory  of  every  reader. — And  as  for 
his  tenderness, — the  quality  without  which  all  other  poetic  excel 
lence  is  barren, — it  gushes  forth  toward  every  creature,  animate 
and  inanimate,  with  one  exception,  namely,  the  hypocrite,  ever 
alike  spiacente  a  Dio  e  ai  nemici  sui  ;  and  therefore  intolerable 
to  Robert  Burns's  honesty,  whether  he  be  fighting  for  or  against 
the  cause  of  right.  Again  we  say,  there  are  evidences  of  a  ver 
satile  and  manifold  faculty  in  this  man,  which,  with  a  stronger 
will  and  a  larger  education,  might  have  placed  him  as  an  equal 
by  the  side  of  those  great  names  which  we  mentioned  together 
with  his  at  the  commencement  of  this  Article. 

But  one  thing  Burns  wanted  ;  and  of  that  one  thing  his  age 
helped  to  deprive  him, — the  education  which  comes  by  rever 
ence.  Looking  round  in  such  a  time,  with  his  keen  power  of 
insight,  his  keen  sense  of  humour,  what  was  there  to  worship  ? 
Lord  Jeffrey,  or  whosoever  was  the  author  of  the  review  in  the 
Edinburgh,  says  disparagingly,  that  Burns  had  as  much  educa 
tion  as  Shakspeare.  So  he  very  probably  had,  if  education 
mean  book-learning.  Nay,  more,  of  the  practical  education  of 
the  fireside,  the  sober,  industrious,  God-fearing  education,  and 
"drawing  out"  of  the  manhood,  by  act  and  example,  Burns  may 
have  had  more  under  his  good  father  than  Shakspeare  under 
his  ;  though  the  family  life  of  the  small  English  burgher  in  Eliza 
beth's  time  would  have  generally  presented,  as  we  suspect,  the 
very  same  aspect  of  staid  manfulness  and  godliness  which  a 
Scotch  farmer's  did  fifty  years  ago.  But  let  that  be  as  it  may, 
Burns  was  not  born  into  an  Elizabethan  age.  He  did  not  see 
around  him  Raleighs  and  Sidneys,  Cecils  and  Hookers,  Drakes 
and  Frobishers,  Spensers  and  Johnsons,  Southampton  and  Wil- 
loughbys,  with  an  Elizabeth,  guiding  and  moulding  the  great 
whole,  a  crowned  Titaness,  terrible,  and  strong,  and  wise, — a 
woman  who,  whether  right  or  wrong,  bowed  the  proudest,  if  not 
to  love,  yet  still  to  obey. 


126  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

That  was  the  secret  of  Shakspeare's  power.  Heroic  himself, 
he  was  born  into  an  age  of  heroes.  You  see  it  in  his  works. 
Not  a  play  but  gives  patent  evidence  that  to  him  all  forms  of 
human  magnanimity  were  common  and  way-side  flowers, — among 
the  humours  of  men  which  he  and  Ben  Jonson  used  to  wander 
forth  together  to  observe.  And  thus  he  could  give  living  action 
and  speech  to  the  ancient  noblenesses  of  Rome  and  the  middle 
age  ;  for  he  had  walked  and  conversed  with  them,  unchanged  in 
every  thing  but  in  the  dress.  Had  he  known  Greek  literature  he 
could  have  recalled  to  imperishable  life  such  .men  as  Cimon  and 
Miltiades,  Leonidas  and  Themistocles,  such  deeds  as  Marathon 
and  Salamis.  For  had  we  not  had  our  own  Miltiades,  our  own 
Salamis,  written  within  a  few  years  of  his  birth  ;  and  were  not 
the  heroes  of  it  still  walking  among  men  ?  It  was  surely  this 
continual  presence  of  "  men  of  worship,"  this  atmosphere  of  admi 
ration  and  respect  and  trust,  in  which  Shakspeare  must  have 
lived,  which  tamed  down  the  wild  self-will  of  the  deer-stealing 
fugitive  from  Stratford,  into  the  calm  large-eyed  philosopher, 
tolerant  and  loving,  and  full  of  faith  in  a  species  made  in  the 
likeness  of  God.  Not  so  with  Burns.  One  feels  painfully  in 
his  poems  the  want  of  great  characters  ;  and  still  more  painfully 
that  he  has  not  drawn  them,  simply  because  they  were  not  there 
to  draw.  That  he  has  a  true  eye  for  what  is  noble  when  he  sees 
it,  let  his  Lament  for  Glencairn  testify,  and  the  stanzas  in  his 
Vision,  in  which,  with  a  high-bred  grace  which  many  a  courtly 
poet  of  his  day  might  have  envied,  he  alludes  to  one  and  another 
Scottish  worthy  of  his  time.  There  is  no  vein  of  saucy  and  envi 
ous  "banausia"  in  the  man ;  even  in  his  most  graceless  sneer,  his 
fault — if  fault  it  be — is,  that  he  cannot  and  will  not  pretend  to 
respect  that  which  he  knows  to  be  unworthy  of  respect.  He  sees 
around  him  and  above  him,  as  well  as  below  him,  an  average  of 
men  and  things  dishonest,  sensual,  ungodly,  shallow,  ridiculous 
by  reason  of  their  own  lusts  and  passions,  and  he  will  not  apply 
to  the  shams  of  dignity  and  worth,  the  words  which  were  meant 
for  their  realities.  After  all,  he'  does  but  say  what  every  one 
round  him  was  feeling  and  thinking :  but  he  said  it ;  and  hypo 
critical  respectability  shrank  shrieking  from  the  mirror  of  her 
own  inner  heart.  But  it  was  all  the  worse  for  him.  In  the  sins 
of  others  he  saw  an  excuse  for  his  own.  Losing  respect  for  and 
faith  in  his  brother  men,  he  lost,  as  a  matter  of  course,  respect 
for  himself,  faith  in  himself.  The  hypocrisy  which  .persecutes  in 
the  name,  of  law,  whether  political  or  moral,  while  in  private  it 
transgresses  the  very  law  which  is  for  ever  on  its  tongue,  is  turned 
by  his  passionate  and  sorely-tempted  character  into  a  too  easy 
excuse  for  disbelieving  in  the  obligation  of  any  law  whatsoever. 


BURNS   AND   HIS   SCHOOL.  127 

He  ceases  to  worship,  and  therefore  to  be  himself  worshipful, — 
and  we  know  the  rest. 

"  He  might  have  still  worshipped  God  ? "  He  might,  and 
surely  amid  all  his  sins,  doubts,  and  confusions,  the  remembrance 
of  the  old  faith  learned  at  his  parent's  knee,  does  haunt  him  still 
as  a  beautiful  regret, — and  sometimes,  in  his  bitterest  hours, 
shine  out  before  his  poor  broken  heart  as  an  everlasting  Pharos, 
lighting  him  homewards  after  all.  Whether  he  reached  that 
home  or  not,  none  on  earth  can  tell.  But  his  writings  show,  if 
any  thing  can,  that  the  vestal-fire  of  conscience  still  burned  within, 
though  choked  again  and  again  with  bitter  ashes  and  foul  smoke. 
Consider  the  time  in  which  he  lived,  when  it  was  "  as  with  the 
people,  so  with  the  priest,"  and  the  grand  old  life-tree  of  the 
Scottish  Church,  now  green  and  vigorous  with  fresh  leaves  and 
flowers,  was  all  crusted  with  foul  scurf  and  moss,  and  seemed  to 
have  ceased  growing,  and  to  be  crumbling  down  into  decay ;  con 
sider  the  terrible  contradiction  between  faith  and  practice  which 
must  have  met  the  eyes  of  the  man,  before  he  could  write  with  the 
same  pen^ — and  one  as  honestly  as  the  other — The  Cottar's  Satur 
day  Night  and  Holy  Willie's  Prayer.  But  those  times  are  past, 
and  the  men  who  acted  in  them  gone  to  another  tribunal.  Let 
the  dead  bury  their  dead ;  and,  in  the  mean  time,  instead  of  curs 
ing  the  misguided  genius,  let  us  consider  whether  we  have  not 
also  something  for  which  to  thank  him  ;  whether,  as  competent 
judges  of  him  aver  from  their  own  experience,  those  very  seem 
ing  blasphemies  of  his  have  not  produced  more  good  than  evil ; 
whether,  though  "a  savour  of  death  unto  death,"  to  conceited 
and  rebellious  spirits,  they  may  not  have  helped  to  open  the  eyes 
of  the  wise  to  the  extent  to  which  the  general  eighteenth  centur,y 
rottenness  had  infected  Scotland,  and  to  make  intolerable  a  state 
of  things  which  ought  to  have  been  intolerable,  even  if  Burns 
had  never  written. 

We  are  not  attacking  the  reviewer,  far  less  the  Edinburgh 
Review,  which  some  years  after  this  not  only  made  the  amende 
honorable  to  Burns,  but  showed  a  frank  impartiality  only  too 
rare  in  the  reviews  of  these  days,  by  publishing  in  its  pages  the 
noble  article  on  Burns  which  has  since  appeared  separately  in 
Mr.  Carlyle's  Miscellanies ;  what  we  want  to  show  from  the 
reviewer's  own  words,  is  the  element  in  which  Burns  had  to 
work,  the  judges  before  whom  he  had  to  plead,  and  the  change 
which,  as  we  think,  very  much  by  the  influence  of  his  own 
poems,  has  passed  upon  the  minds  of  men.  How  few  are  there 
who  would  pen  now  about  him  such  a  sentence  as  this — "  He 
is,"  (that  is,  was,  having  gone  to  his  account  fifteen  years  before,) 
"  perpetually  making  a  parade  of  his  own  inflammability  and 


128  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

imprudence,  and  talking  with  much  self-complacency  and  exul 
tation  of  the  offence  he  has  occasioned  to  the  sober  and  correct 
part  of  mankind," — a  very  small  part  of  mankind,  one  would 
have  thought,  in  the  British  isles  at  least,  about  the  end  of  the 
last  century.  But,  it  was  the  fashion  then,  as  usual,  to  substitute 
the  praise  of  virtues  for  the  practice  of  them,  and  three-bottle 
and  ten-tumbler  men  had  a  very  good  right,  of  course,  to  admire 
sobriety  and  correctness,  and  denounce  any  two-bottle  and  six- 
tumbler  man  who  was  not  ashamed  to  confess  in  print  the  weak 
nesses  which  they  confessed  only  by  word  of  mouth.  Just,  and 
yet  not  just.  True,  Burns  does  make  a  parade  of  his  thought 
lessness,  and  worse — but,  why  ?  because  he  gloried  in  it  ?  He 
must  be  a  very  skin-deep  critic  who  cannot  see,  even  in  the  most 
insolent  of  those  blameworthy  utterances,  an  inward  shame  and 
self-reproach,  which  if  any  man  had  ever  felt  in  himself,  he 
would  be  in  nowise  inclined  to  laugh  at  it  in  others.  Why,  it  is 
the  very  shame  which  wrings  those  poems  out  of  him.  They 
are  the  attempt  of  the  strong  man  fettered  to  laugh  at  his  own 
consciousness  of  slavery — to  deny  the  existence  of  his  chains — to 
pretend  to  himself  that  he  likes  them.  To  us,  some  of  those 
wildest,  "  Rob  the  Ranter "  bursts  of  blackguardism  are  most 
deeply  mournful,  hardly  needing  that  the  sympathies  which  they 
stir  up  should  be  heightened  by  the  little  scraps  of  prayer  and 
bitter  repentance,  which  lie  up  and  down  among  their  uglier 
brethren,  the  disjecta  membra  of  a  great  "  De  Profundis,"  per 
haps  not  all  unheard.  These  latter  pieces  are  most  significant. 
The  very  doggrel  of  them,  the  total  absence  of  any  attempt  at 
ornament  in  diction  or  polish  in  metre,  is  proof  complete  of  their 
deep  heart-wrung  sincerity.  They  are  like  the  wail  of  a  lost 
child,  rather  than  the  remorse  of  a  Titan.  The  heart  of  the 
man  was  so  young  to  the  last ;  the  boy-vein  in  him,  as  perhaps 
in  all  great  poets,  beating  on  through  manhood  for  good  and  for 
evil.  No !  there  was  parade  there,  as  of  the  lost  woman,  who 
tries  to  hide  her  self-disgust  by  staring  you  out  of  countenance, 
but  of  complacency  and  exultation,  none. 

On  one  point,  namely,  politics,  Burns's  higher  sympathies  seem 
to  have  been  awakened.  It  had  been  better  for  him,  in  a  worldly 
point  of  view,  that  they  had  not.  In  an  intellectual,  and  even  in 
a  moral  point  of  view,  far  worse.  A  fellow-feeling  with  the 
French  Revolution,  in  the  mind  of  a  young  man  of  that  day, 
was  a  sign  of  moral  health,  which  we  should  have  been  sorry  to 
miss  in  him.  Unable  to  foresee  the  outcome  of  the  great  strug 
gle,  having  lost  faith  in  those  everlasting  truths,  religious  and 
political,  which  it  was  madly  setting  at  nought,  what  could  it 
appear  to  him  but  an  awakening  from  the  dead,  a  return  to  young 


BURNS  AND  HIS  SCHOOL.  129 

and  genial  health,  a  purifying  thunder-storm.  Such  was  his 
dream,  the  dream  of  thousands  more,  and  not  so  wrong  a  one 
after  all.  For  that,  since  that  fearful  outburst  of  the  nether  pit, 
all  Europe  has  arisen  and  awakened  into  manifold  and  beautiful 
new  life,  who  can  deny  ?  We  are  not  what  we  were,  but  better ; 
or  rather,  with  boundless  means  of  being  better  if  we  will.  We 
have  entered  a  fresh  era  of  time  for  good  and  evil ;  the  fact  is 
patent  in  every  sermon  we  hear,  in  every  book  we  read,  in  every 
invention,  even  the  most  paltry,  which  we  see  registered.  Shall 
we  think  hardly  of  the  man  who  saw  the  dawn  of  our  own  day, 
and  welcomed  it  cheerfully  and  hopefully,  even  though  he  fancied 
the  mist-spectres  to  be  elements  of  the  true  sunrise,  and  knew 
not — and  who  knows  ? — the  purposes  of  Him  whose  paths  are  in 
the  great  deep,  and  his  ways  past  finding  out  ?  At  least,  the 
greater  part  of  his  influence  on  the  times  which  have  followed 
him,  is  to  be  ascribed  to  that  very  "  Radicalism  "  which  in  the 
eyes  of  the  respectable  around  him,  had  sealed  his  doom,  and 
consigned  him  to  ignoble  oblivion.  It  has  been,  with  the  working 
men  who  read  him,  a  passport  for  the  rest  of  his  writings  ;  it 
has  allured  them  to  listen  to  him,  when  he  spoke  of  high  and 
holy  things,  which  but  for  him,  they  might  have  long  ago  tossed 
away  as  worthless,  in  the  recklessness  of  ignorance  and  discon 
tent.  They  could  trust  his  Cottar  s  Saturday  Night ;  they 
could  believe  that  he  spoke  from  his  heart,  when  in  deep  anguish 
he  cries  to  the  God  whom  he  had  forgotten,  while  they  would 
have  turned  with  a  distrustful  sneer  from  the  sermon  of  the  sleek 
and  comfortable  minister,  who  in  their  eyes,  however  humbly 
born,  had  deserted  his  class,  and  gone  over  to  the  camp  of  the 
enemy,  and  the  flesh-pots  of  Egypt. 

After  the  time  of  Burns,  as  was  to  be  expected,  Scottish  song 
multiplies  itself  tenfold.  The  nation  becomes  awakened  to  the 
treasures  of  its  own  old  literature,  and  attempts,  what  after  all, 
alas !  is  but  a  revival ;  and  like  most  revivals,  not  altogether  a 
successful  one.  Of  the  twelve  hundred  songs  contained  in  Mr. 
Whitelaw's  excellent  collection,  whereof  more  than  a  hundred 
and  fifty  are  either  wholly  or  partly  Burns's,  the  small  proportion 
written  before  him  are  decidedly  far  superior  in  value  to  those 
written  after  him  ;  a  discouraging  fact,  though  not  •  difficult  to 
explain,  if  we  consider  the  great  social  changes  which  have  been 
proceeding,  the  sterner  subjects  of  thought  which  have  been 
arising,  during  the  last  half  century.  True  song  requires  for  its 
atmosphere  a  state  rather  of  careless  arcadian  prosperity,  than  of 
struggle  and  doubt,  of  earnest  looking  forward  to  an  unknown 
future,  and  pardonable  regret  for  a  dying  past ;  and  in  that  state 
the  mind  of  the  masses,  throughout  North  Britain,  has  been  wel- 

6  * 


130  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

tering  confusedly  for  the  last  few  years.  The  new  and  more 
complex  era  into  which  we  are  passing  has  not  yet  sufficiently 
opened  itself  to  be  sung  about ;  men  hardly  know  what  it  is, 
much  less  what  it  will  be  ;  and  while  they  are  hard  at  work 
creating  it,  they  have  no  breath  to  spare  in  talking  of  it :  one 
thing  they  do  see  and  feel,  painfully  enough  at  times,  namely, 
that  the  old  Scottish  pastoral  life  is  passing  away  before  the 
combined  influence  of  manufactures  and  the  large-farm  system, 
to  be  replaced,  doubtless,  hereafter  by  something  better,  but  in 
the  meanwhile  dragging  down  with  it  in  its  decay  but  too  much 
that  can  ill  be  spared  of  that  old  society  which  inspired  Ramsay 
and  Burns.  Hence  the  later  Scottish  song  writers  seldom  really 
sing  ;  their  proses  want  the  unconscious  lilt  and  flash  of  their 
old  models  ;  they  will  hardly  go  (the  true  test  of'a  song)  without 
music — the  true  test,  we  say,  of  a  song.  Who  needs  music, 
however  fitting  and  beautiful  the  accustomed  air  may  happen  to 
be,  to  Roy's  Wife  of  Aldivalloch,  or  The  Bride  cam'  out  o' 
the  Byre,  or  either  of  the  casts  of  The  Floivers  of  the  Forest, 
or  to  Auld  Lang  Syne  itself?  They  bubble  right  up  out  of 
the  heart,  and  by  virtue  of  their  inner  and  unconscious  melody, 
which  all  that  is  true  to  the  heart  has  in  it,  shape  themselves 
into  a  song,  and  are  not  shaped  by  any  notes  whatsoever.  So 
with  many,  most  indeed,  of  Burns's  and  a  few  of  Allan  Cunning 
ham's  ;  the  Wet  Sheet  and  a  Flowing  Sail,  for  instance.  But 
the  great  majority  of  these  later  songs  seem,  if  the  truth  is  to 
be  spoken,  inspirations  at  second  hand,  of  people  writing  about 
things  which  they  would  like  to  feel,  and  which  they  ought  to 
feel,  because  others  used  to  feel  them  in  old  times,  but  which 
they  do  not  feel  as  their  forefathers  felt — a  sort  of  poetical 
Tractarianism,  in  short.  Their  metre  betrays  them,  as  well  as 
their  words;  in  both  they  are  continually  wandering,  uncon 
sciously  to  themselves,  into  the  elegiac — except  when  on  one  sub 
ject,  whereon  the  muse  of  Scotia  still  warbles  at  first  hand,  and 
from  the  depths  of  her  heart — namely,  alas  !  the  Barley  Bree  ! 
and  yet  never,  even  on  this  beloved  theme,  has  she  risen  again 
to  the  height  of  Burns's  bacchanalian  songs. 

But  when  sober,  there  is  a  sadness  about  the  Scottish  muse 
now-a-days — as  perhaps  there  ought  to  be — and  the  utterances 
of  hers  which  ring  the  truest  are  laments.  We  question  whether 
in  all  Mr.  Whitelaw's  collection  there  is  a  single  modern  poem, 
(placing  Burns  as  the  transition  point  between  the  old  and  new,) 
which  rises  so  high,  or  pierces  so  deep,  with  all  its  pastoral 
simplicity,  as  Smibert's  Widow's  Lament. 

"  Afore  the  Lammas  tide 

Had  dun'd  the  birken  tree, 


BURNS   AND  HIS   SCHOOL. 

In  a'  our  water  side, 
Nae  wife  was  blest  like  me: 

A  kind  gudeman,  and  twa 

Sweet  bairns  were  round  me  here; 

But  they're  a'  ta'en  awa' 
Sin'  the  fa'  o'  the  year. 

"  Sair  trouble  cam'  our  gate, 

And  made  me,  when  it  cam', 
A  bird  without  a  mate, 

A  ewe  without  a  lamb. 
Our  hay  was  yet  to  maw, 

And  our  corn  was  yet  to  shear; 
When  they  a'  dwined  awa' 

In  the  fa'  o'  the  year, 

"  I  daurna  look  a-field, 

For  aye  I  trow  to  see, 
The  form  that  was  a  bield 

To  my  wee  bairns  and  me; 
But  wind,  and  weet,  and  snaw, 

They  never  mair  can  fear, 
Sin'  they  a'  got  the  ca', 

In  the  fa'  o'  the  year. 

"  Aft  on  the  hill  at  e'ens 

I  see  him  'mang  the  ferns, 
The  lover  o'  my  teens, 

The  father  o'  my  bairns: 
For  there  his  plaid  I  saw, 

As  gloamm'  aye  drew  near — 
But  my  a's  now  awa', 

Sin'  'the  fa'  o'  the  year. 

"  Our  bonnie  rigs  theirsel', 

Reca'  my  waes  to  mind, 
Our  puir  d'umb  beasties  tell 

0'  a'  that  I  ha'e  tyned ; 
For  whae  our  wheat  will  saw, 

And  whae  our  sheep  will  shear, 
Sin'  my  a'  gaed  awa', 

In  the  fa'  o'  the  year? 

"  My  heart  is  growing  cauld, 

-And  will  be  caulder  still, 

And  sair,  sair  in  the  fauld, 

Will  be  the  winter's  chill; 
For  peats  were  yet  to  ca', 

Our  sheep  they  were  to  smear, 
When  rny  a'  dwined  awa', 
In  the  fa'  o'  the  year. 

"  I  ettle  whiles  to  spin, 

But  wee  wee  patterin'  feet 
Come  rinnin'  out  and  in, 

And  then  I  first  maun  greet: 
I  ken  its  fancy  a', 

And  faster  rows  the  tear, 
That  my  a'  dwined  awa' 

In  the  fa'  o'  the  year. 


132  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

"  Be  kind,  0  heav'n  abune ! 

To  ane  sae  wae  and  lane, 
An'  tak'  her  hamewards  sune, 

In  pity  o'  her  mane  : 
Lang  ere  the  March  winds  blaw, 

May  she,  far  far  frae  here, 
Meet  them  a'  that's  awa', 

Sin'  the  fa'  o'  the  year." 

It  seems  strange  why  the  man  who  could  write  this,  who  shows, 
in  the  minor  key  of  metre,  which  he  has  so  skilfully  chosen,  such 
an  instinct  for  the  true  music  of  words,  could  not  have  written 
much  more.  And  yet,  perhaps,  we  have  ourselves  given  the 
reason  already.  There  was  not  much  more  to  sing  about.  The 
fashion  of  imitating  old  Jacobite  songs  is  past,  the  mine  now  being 
exhausted,  to  the  great  comfort  of  sincerity  and  common  sense. 
The  peasantry,  whose  courtships,  rich  in  animal  health,  yet  not 
over  pure  or  refined,  Allan  Ramsay  sung  a  hundred  years  ago, 
are  learning  to  think,  and  act,  and  emigrate,  as  well  as  to  make 
love.  The  age  of  Theocritus  and  Bion  has  given  place  to — 
shall  we  say  the  age  of  the  Ca3sars,  or  the  irruption  of  the  bar 
barians  ? — and  the  love-singers  of  the  North  are  beginning  to 
feel,  that  if  that  passion  is  to  retain  any  longer  its  rightful  place 
in  their  popular  poetry,  it  must  be  spoken  of  henceforth  in  words 
as  lofty  and  refined  as  those  in  which  the  most  educated  and  the 
most  gifted  speak  of  it.  Hence,  in  the  transition  between  the 
old  animalism  and  the  new  spiritualism,  a  jumble  of  the  two 
elements,  not  always  felicitous ;  attempts  at  ambitious  descrip 
tion,  after  Burns's  worst  manner ;  at  subjective  sentiment,  after 
the  worst  manner  of  the  world  in  general ;  and  yet,  all  the  while, 
a  consciousness  that  there  was  something  worth  keeping  in  the 
simple  objective  style  of  the  old  school,  without  which  the  new 
thoughtfulness  would  be  hollow,  and  barren,  and  windy;  and  so 
the  two  are  patched  together,  "  new  cloth  into  an  old  garment, 
making  the  rent  worse."  Accordingly,  they  are  universally 
troubled  with  the  disease  of  epithets,  these  new  songs.  Ryan's 
exquisite  Lass  wi'  the  Bonny  Blue  Een,  is  utterly  spoiled  by 
two  offences  of  this  kind. 

"  She'll  steal  out  to  meet  her  loved  Donald  again," 
and — 

"  The  world'sjTafee  and  vanishing  scene;  " 

as  Allan   Cunningham's    still   more    exquisite  Lass   of  Preston 
Mill,  is  by  one  subjective  figure, — 

"  Six  hills  are  woolly  with  my  sheep, 
Six  vales  are  lowing  with  my  kye." 


BURNS  AND  HIS  SCHOOL.  133 

Burns  doubtless  committed  the  same  fault  again  and  again  ; 
but  in  his  time  it  was  the  fashion ;  and  the  older  models  (for 
models  they  are  and  will  remain  for  ever)  had  not  been  studied 
and  analyzed  as  they  have  been  since.  Burns,  indeed,  actually 
spoiled  one  or  two  of  his  own  songs  by  altering  them  from  their 
first  cast  to  suit  the  sentimental  taste  of  his  time.  The  first  ver 
sion,  for  instance,  of  the  Banks  and  Braes  o'  Bonnie  Doon,  is 
far  superior  to  the  second  and  more  popular  one,  because  it 
dares  to  go  without  epithets.  Compare  the  second  stanza  of 
each : — 

"  Thoul't  break  my  heart,  them  bonnie  bird, 

That  sings  upon  the  bough ; 
Thou  minds  me  o'  the  happy  days    • 

When  my  fause  love  was  true." 
***** 
"  Thoul't  break  my  heart,  thou  ivarbling  bird, 

That  wantons  through  the  flowery  thorn ; 
Thou  minds  me  o1  departed  joys, 
Departed  never  to  return." 

"What  is  said  in  the  latter  stanza  which  has  not  been  said  in 
the  former,  and  said  more  dramatically,  more  as  the  images 
would  really  present  themselves  to  the  speaker's  mind?  It 
would  be  enough  for  him  that  the  bird  was  bonnie,  and  singing  ; 
and  his  very  sorrow  would  lead  him  to  analyze  and  describe  as 
little  as  possible  a  thing  which  so  painfully  contrasted  with  his 
own  feelings ;  whether  the  thorn  was  flowery  or  not,  would  not 
have  mattered  to  him,  unless  he  had  some  distinct  association 
with  the  thorn-flowers,  in  which  case  he  would  have  brought  out 
the  image  full  and  separate,  and  not  merely  thrown  it  in  as  a 
make-weight  to  "  thorn  ; " — and  this  is  the  great  reason  why 
epithets  are,  nine  times  out  of  ten,  mistakes  in  song  and  ballad 
poetry,  he  never  would  have  thought  of  "  departed  "  before  he 
thought  of  "joys."  A  very  little  consideration  of  the  actual  pro 
cesses  of  thought  in  such  a  case,  will  show  the  truth  of  our  obser 
vation,  and  the  instinctive  wisdom  of  the  older  song-writers,  in 
putting  the  epithet  as  often  as  possible  after  the  noun,  instead  of 
before  it,  even  at  the  expense  of  grammar.  They  are  bad  things 
at  all  times  in  song-poetry,  these  epithets  ;  and,  accordingly,  we 
find  that  the  best  German  writers,  like  Uhland  and  Heine,  get 
rid  of  them  as  much  as  possible,  and  succeed  thereby,  every 
word  striking  and  ringing  down  with  full  force,  no  cushion  of  an 
epithet  intruding  between  the  reader's  brain-anvil  and  the  poet's 
hammer  to  break  the  blow.  In  Uhland's  Three  Burschen, 
if  we  recollect  right,  there  are  but  two  epithets,  and  those  of  the 
simplest  descriptive  kind — "  Thy  fair  daughter "  and  a  "  black 
pall."  Were  there  more,  we  question  whether  the  poet  would 


134  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

have  succeeded,  as  he  has  done,  in  making  our  flesh  creep  as  he 
leads  us  on  from  line  to  line  and  verse  to  verse.  So  Tennyson, 
the  greatest  of  our  living  poets,  eschews  as  much  as  possible, 
in  his  later  writings,  these  same  epithets,  except  in  cases  where 
they  are  themselves  objective  and  pictorial — in  short,  the  very 
things  which  he  wants  you  to  look  at,  as,  for  instance, — 

"And  into  silver  arrows  break 
The  sailing  moon  in  creek  and  cove." 

This  is  fair  enough  ;  but,  indeed,  after  laying  down  our  rule,  we 
must  confess  that  it  is  very  difficult  to  keep  always  true  to  it, 
in  a  language  which  does  not,  like  the  Latin  and  German,  allow 
us  to  put  our  adjectives  very  much  where  we  choose.  Never 
theless,  whether  we  can  avoid  it  or  not,  every  time  we  place 
before  the  noun  an  epithet  which,  like  "  departed  joys,"  relates 
to  our  consciousnesses  concerning  the  object,  and  not  merely  to 
the  object  itself;  or  an  epithet,  which,  like  "flowery  thorn," 
gives  us,  before  we  get  to  the  object  itself,  those  accidents  of  the 
object  which  we  only  discern  by  a  second  look,  by  analysis  and 
reflection ;  (for  the  thorn,  if  in  the  flower,  would  look  to  us,  at 
the  first  glance,  not  "  flowery,"  but  "  white,"  "  snowy,"  or  what 
you  will  which  expresses  colour,  and  not  scientific  fact) — every 
time,  we  repeat,  this  is  done,  the  poet  descends  from  the  objective 
and  dramatic  domain  of  song,  into  the  subjective  and  reflective 
one  of  elegy. 

But  the  field  in  which  Burns's  influence  has  been,  as  was  to 
be  expected,  most  important  and  most  widely  felt,  is  in  the  poems 
of  working  men.  He  first  proved  that  it  was  possible  to  become 
a  poet  and  a  cultivated  man,  without  deserting  his  class,  either 
in  station  or  in  sympathies  ;  nay,  that  the  healthiest  and  noblest 
elements  of  a  lowly  born  poet's  mind  might  be,  perhaps  certainly 
must  be,  the  very  feelings  and  thoughts  which  he  brought  up 
with  him  from  below,  not  those  which  he  received  from  above, 
in  the  course  of  his  artificial  culture.  From  the  example  of 
Burns,  therefore,  many  a  working  man,  who  would  otherwise 
have  "  died  and  given  no  sign,"  has  taken  courage,  and  spoken 
out  the  thought  within  him,  in  verse  or  prose,  not  always  wisely 
and  well,  but  in  all  cases,  as  it  seems  to  us,  in  the  belief  that  he 
had  a  sort  of  divine  right  to  speak  and  be  heard,  since  Burns 
had  broken  down  the  artificial  ice-wall  of  centuries,  and  asserted, 
by  act  as  well  as  song,  that  "  a  man's  a  man  for  a'  that."  Almost 
every  volume  of  working  men's  poetry  which  we  have  read,  seems 
to  reecho  poor  Nicoll's  spirited,  though  somewhat  overstrained 
address  to  the  Scottish  genius  : — 


BURNS   AND   HIS   SCHOOL.  135 

"  This  is  the  natal  day  of  him, 

Who,  born  in  want  and  poverty, 
Burst  from  his  fetters,  and  arose, 
The  freest  of  the  free. 

"  Arose  to  tell  the  watching  earth 

What  lowly  men  could  feel  and  do, 
To  show  that  mighty,  heaven-like  souls 
In  cottage  hamlets  grew. 

"  Burns !  thou  hast  given  us  a  name 

To  shield  us  from  the  taunts  of  scorn: 
The  plant  that  creeps  amid  the  soil 
A  glorious  flower  has  borne. 

"  Before  the  proudest  of  the  earth 

We  stand  with  an  uplifted  brow 

Like  us,  thou  wast  a  toil-worn  man; 

And  we  are  noble  now !  " 

The  critic,  looking  calmly  on,  may  indeed  question  whether  this 
new  fashion  of  verse-writing  among  working  men  has  been  always 
conducive  to  their  own  happiness.  As  for  absolute  success  as 
poets,  that  was  not  to  be  expected  of  one  in  a  hundred,  so  that 
we  must  not  be  disappointed  if  among  the  volumes  of  working 
men's  poetry,  of  which  we  give  a  list  at  the  head  of  our  Article, 
only  two  should  be  found,  on  perusal,  to  contain  any  writing  of  a 
very  high  order,  although  these  volumes  form  a  very  small  por 
tion  of  the  verses  which  have  been  written,  during  the  last  forty 
years,  by  men  engaged  in  the  rudest  and  most  monotonous  toil. 
To  every  man  so  writing,  the  art,  doubtless,  is  an  ennobling  one. 
The  habit  of  expressing  thought  in  verse  not  only  indicates  cul 
ture,  but  is  a  culture  in  itself  of  a  very  high  order.  It  teaches 
the  writer  to  think  tersely  and  definitely ;  it  evokes  in  him  the 
humanizing  sense  of  grace  and  melody,  not  merely  by  enticing 
him  to  study  good  models,  but  by  the  very  act  of  composition. 
It  gives  him  a  vent  for  sorrows,  doubts,  and  aspirations,  which 
might  otherwise  fret  and  canker  within,  breeding,  as  they  too 
often  do  in  the  utterly  dumb  English  peasant,  self-devouring 
meditation,  dogged  melancholy,  and  fierce  fanaticism.  And  if 
the  effect  of  verse-writing  had  stopped  there,  all  had  been  well ; 
but  bad  models  have  had  their  effect  as  well  as  good  ones,  on  the 
half-tutored  taste  of  the  working  men,  and  engendered  in  them 
but  too  often  a  fondness  for  frothy  magniloquence  and  ferocious 
raving,  neither  morally  nor  aesthetically  profitable  to  themselves  or 
their  readers.  There  are  excuses  for  the  fault ;  the  young  of  all 
ranks  naturally  enough  mistake  noise  for  awfulness,  and  violence 
for  strength ;  and  there  is  generally  but  too  much,  in  the  biogra 
phies  of  these  working  poets,  to  explain,  if  not  to  excuse,  a  vein  of 
bitterness,  which  they  certainly  did  not  learn  from  their  master, 


136  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

Burns.  The  two  poets  who  have  done  them  most  harm,  in  teach 
ing  the  evil  trick  of  cursing  and  swearing,  are  Shelley  and  the 
Corn-Law  Rhymer ;  and  one  can  well  imagine  how  seducing  two 
such  models  must  be,  to  men -struggling  to  utter  their  own  com 
plaints.  Of  Shelley  this  is  not  the  place  to  speak.  But  of  the 
Corn-Law  Rhymer  we  may  say  here,  that  howsoever  he  may 
have  been  indebted  to  Burns's  example  for  the  notion  of  writing 
at  all,  he  has  profited  very  little  by  Burns's  own  poems.  Instead 
of  the  genial  loving  tone  of  the  great  Scotchman,  we  find  in 
Elliott  a  tone  of  deliberate  savageness,  all  the  more  ugly,  because 
evidently  intentional.  He  tries  to  curse ;  "  he  delights  " — may 
we  be  forgiven  if  we  misjudge  the  man — "  in  cursing ;  "  he  makes 
a  science  of  it ;  he  defiles,  of  malice  prepense,  the  loveliest  and 
sweetest  thoughts  and  scenes  (and  he  can  be  most  sweet)  by  giv 
ing  some  sudden,  sickening  revulsion  to  his  reader's  feelings  ; 
and  he  does  it  generally  with  a  power  which  makes  it  at  once  as 
painful  to  the  calmer  reader  as  alluring  to  those  who  are  strug 
gling  with  the  same  temptations  as  the  poet.  Now  and  then,  his 
trick  drags  him  down  into  sheer  fustian  and  bombast ;  but  not 
always.  There  is  a  terrible  Dantean  vividness  of  imagination 
about  him,  perhaps  unequalled  in  England,  in  his  generation. 
His  poems  are  like  his  countenance,  coarse  and  ungoverned,  yet 
with  an  intensity  of  eye,  a  rugged  massiveness  of  feature,  which 
would  be  grand  but  for  the  absence  of  love  and  of  humour — love's 
twin  and  inseparable  brother.  Therefore  it  is,  that  although  sin 
gle  passages  may  be  found  in  his  writings,  of  which  Milton  him 
self  need  not  have  been  ashamed,  his  efforts  at  dramatic  poetry 
are  utter  failures,  dark,  monstrous,  unrelieved  by  any  really 
human  vein  of  feeling  or  character.  As  in  feature,  so  in  mind, 
he  has  not  even  the  delicate  and  graceful  organization  which 
made  up  in  Milton  for  the  want  of  tenderness,  and  so  enabled 
him  to  write,  if  not  a  drama,  yet  still  the  sweetest  of  masques 
and  idyls. 

Rather  belonging  to  the  same  school  than  to  that  of  Burns, 
though  »ever  degrading  itself  by  Elliott's  ferocity,  is  that  extra 
ordinary  poem,  The  Purgatory  of  Suicides,  by  Thomas  Cooper. 
As  he  is  still  in  the  prime  of  life,  and  capable  of  doing  more  and 
better  than  he  yet  has  done,  we  will  not  comment  on  it  as  freely 
as  we  have  on  Elliott,  except  to  regret  a  similar  want  of  softness 
and  sweetness,  and  also  of  a  clearness  and  logical  connection  of 
thought,  in  which  Elliott  seldom  fails,  except  when  cursing.  The 
imagination  is  hardly  as  vivid  as  Elliott's,  though  the  fancy  and 
invention,  the  polish  of  the  style,  and  the  indications  of  profound 
thought  on  all  subjects  within  the  poet's  reach,  are  superior  in 
every  way  to  those  of  the  Corn-Law  Rhymer;  and  when  we 


BURNS  AND  HIS  SCHOOL.  137 

consider  that  the  man  who  wrote  it  had  to  gather  his  huge  store 
of  classic  and  historic  anecdote  while  earning  his  living,  first  as  a 
shoemaker,  and  then  as  a  Wesleyan  country  preacher,  we  can 
only  praise  and  excuse,  and  hope  that  the  day  may  come  when 
talents  of  so  high  an  order  will  find  some  healthier  channel  for 
their  energies  than  that  in  which  they  now  are  flowing. 

Our  readers  may  wonder  at  not  seeing  the  Et trick  Shepherd's 
poems  among  the  list  at  the  head  of  the  Article.  It  seems  to  us, 
however,  that  we  have  done  right  in  omitting  them.  Doubtless, 
he  too  was  awakened  into  song  by  the  example  of  Burns  ;  but 
he  seems  to  us  to  owe  little  to  his  great  predecessor,  beyond  the 
general  consciousness  that  there  was  a  virgin  field  of  poetry  in 
Scotch  scenery,  manners,  and  legends — a  debt  which  Walter 
Scott  himself  probably  owed  to  the  Ayrshire  peasant  just  as 
much  as  Hogg  did.  Indeed,  we  perhaps  are  right  in  saying,  that 
had  Burns  not  lived,  neither  Wilson,  Gait,  Allan  Cunningham, 
or  the  crowd  of  lesser  writers  who  have  found  material  for  their 
fancy  in  Scotch  peculiarities,  would  have  written  as  they  have. 
The  first  three  names,  Wilson's  above  all,  must  have  been  in  any 
case  distinguished  ;  yet  it  is  surely  no  derogation  to  some  of  the 
most  exquisite  rural  sketches  in  Christopher  North's  Recrea 
tions,  to  claim  them  as  the  intellectual  foster-children  of  The 
Cottar's  Saturday  Night.  In  this  respect,  certainly,  the  Ettrick 
Shepherd  has  a  place  in  Burns's  school,  and,  in  our  own  opinion, 
one  which  has  been  very  much  overrated.  But  the  deeper  ele 
ments  of  Burns's  mind,  those  which  have  especially  endeared 
him  to  the  working  man,  reappear  very  little,  or  not  at  all,  in 
Hogg.  He  left  his  class  too  much  below  him ;  became  too 
much  of  the  mere  aesthetic  prodigy,  and  member  of  a  literary 
clique;  frittered  away  his  great  talents  in  brilliant  talk  and 
insincere  Jacobite  songs,  and,  in  fine,  worked  no  deliverance  on 
the  earth.  It  is  sad  to  have  to  say  this,  but  we  had  it  forced 
upon  us  painfully  enough  a  few  days  ago,  when  re-reading  Kil- 
meny.  There  may  be  beautiful  passages  in  it ;  but  it  is  not 
coherent,  not  natural,  not  honest.  It  is  throughout,  an  affecta 
tion  of  the  Manichsean  sentimental-sublime,  wrhich  God  never  yet 
put  into  the  heart  of  any  brawny,  long-headed,  practical  Bor 
derer,  and  which  he  therefore  probably  put  into  his  own  head, 
or,  as  we  call  it,  affected,  for  the  time  being ;  a  method  of  poetry 
writing  which  comes  forth  out  of  nothing,  and  into  nothing  must 
return. 

This  is  unfortunate,  perhaps,  for  the  world }  for  we  question 
whether  a  man  of  talents  in  anywise  to  be  compared  with  those 
of  the  Ettrick  Shepherd  has  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  Burns. 
Poor  Tannahill,  whose  sad  story  is  but  too  well  known,  perished 


138  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

early,  at  the  age  of  thirty-six,  leaving  behind  him  a  good  many 
pretty  love-songs  of  no  great  intrinsic  value,  if  the  specimens  of 
them  given  in  Mr.  Whitelaw's  collection  are  to  be  accepted  as 
the  best.  Like  all  Burns's  successors,  including  even  Walter 
Scott  and  Hogg,  we  have  but  to  compare  him  with  his  original  to 
see  how  altogether  unrivalled  on  his  own  ground  the  Ayrshire 
farmer  was.  In  one  feature  only  Tannahill's  poems,  and  those 
later  than  him,  except  where  pedantically  archaist,  like  many  of 
Motherwell's,  are  an  improvement  on  Burns  ;  namely,  in  the 
more  easy  and  complete  interfusion  of  the  two  dialects,  the  Norse 
Scotch  and  the  Romanesque  English,  which  Allan  Ramsay 
attempted  in  vain  to  unite  ;  while  Burns,  though  not  succeeding 
by  any  means  perfectly,  welded  them  together  into  something  of 
continuity  and  harmony — thus  doing  for  the  language  of  his  own 
country  very  much  what  Chaucer  did  for  that  of  England. — A 
happy  union,  in  the  opinion  of  those  who,  as  we  do,  look  on  the 
vernacular  Norse  Scotch  as  no  barbaric  dialect,  but  as  an  inde 
pendent  tongue,  possessing  a  copiousness,  melody,  terseness,  and 
picturesqueness  which  makes  it  both  in  prose  and  verse,  a  far 
better  vehicle  than  the  popular  English  for  many  forms  of 
thought. 

Perhaps  the  young  peasant  who  most  expressly  stands  out  as 
the  pupil  and  successor  of  Burns,  is  Robert  Nicoll.  He  is  a  les 
ser  poet,  doubtless,  than  his  master,  and  a  lesser  man,  if  the  size 
and  number  of  his  capabilities  be  looked  at ;  but  he  is  a  greater 
man,  in  that,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his  career,  he  seems 
to  have  kept  that  very  wholeness  of  heart  and  head  which  poor 
Burns  lost.  Nicoll's  story  is,  mutatis  mutandis,  that  of  the 
Bethunes,  and  many  a  noble  young  Scotsman  more.  Parents 
holding  a  farm  between  Perth  and  Dunkeld,  they  and  theirs 
before  them  for  generations  inhabitants  of  the  neighbourhood, 
"  decent,  honest,  God-fearing  people."  The  farm  is  lost  by  re 
verses,  and  manfully  Robert  Nicoll's  father  becomes  a  day  labour 
er  on  the  fields  which  he  lately  rented:  and  there  begins,  for  the 
boy,  from  his  earliest  recollections,  a  life  of  steady  sturdy  drudgery. 
But  they  must  have  been  grand  old  folk  these  parents,  and  in 
nowise  addicted  to  wringing  their  hands  over  "  the  great  might- 
have-been."  Like  true  Scots  Bible-lovers,  they  do  believe  in  a 
God,  and  in  a  will  of  God,  underlying,  absolute,  loving,  and  believe 
that  the  might-have-been  ought  not  to  have  been  simply  because 
it  has  not  been ;  and  so  they  put  their  shoulders  to  the  new  collar 
patiently,  cheerfully,  hopefully,  and  teach  the  boys  to  do  the  same. 
The  mother  especially,  as  so  many  great  men's  mothers  do,  stands 
out  large  and  heroic,  from  the  time  when,  the  farm  being  gone, 
she,  "  the  ardent  book -woman,"  finds  her  time  too  precious  to  be 


BURNS   AND   HIS   SCHOOL.  ^39 

spent  in  reading,  and  sets  little  Robert  to  read  to  her  as  she  works — 
what  a  picture  ! — to  the  last  sad  day,  when,  wanting  money  to  come 
up  to  Leeds  to  see  her  dying  darling,  she  "  shore  for  the  siller," 
rather  than  borrow  it.  And  her  son's  life  is  like  her  own — the 
most  pure,  joyous,  valiant  little  epic.  Robert  does  not  even  take 
to  work  as  something  beyond  himself,  uninteresting  and  painful, 
which,  however,  must  be  done  courageously :  he  lives  in  it,  enjoys 
it  as  his  proper  element,  one  which  is  no  more  a  burden  and  an 
exertion  to  him  than  the  rush  of  the  strid  is  to  the  trout  who 
plays  and  feeds  in  it  day  and  night,  unconscious -of  the  amount  of 
muscular  strength  which  he  puts  forth  in  merely  keeping  his 
place  in  the  stream.  Whether  carrying  Kenilworth  in  his  plaid 
to  the  woods,  to  read  while  herding,  or  selling  currants  and 
whisky  as  the  Perth  storekeeper's  apprentice,  or  keeping  his  lit 
tle  circulating  library  in  Dundee,  tormenting  his  pure  heart  with 
the  thought  of  the  twenty  pounds  which  his  mother  has  borrowed 
wherewith  to  start  him,  or  editing  the  Leeds  Times,  or  lying  on 
his  early  death-bed,  just  as  life  seems  to  be  opening  clear  and 
broad  before  him,  he 

"  Bates  not  a  jot  of  heart  or  hope," 

but  steers  right  onward,  singing  over  his  work,  without  bluster 
or  self-gratulation,  but  for  very  joy  at  having  work  to  do.  There 
is  a  keen  practical  insight  about  him,  rarely  combined,  in  these 
days,  with  his  single-minded  determination  to  do  good  in  his  gen 
eration.  His  eye  is  single,  and  his  whole  body  full  of  light. 

"  It  would  indeed,"  writes  the  grocer's  boy,  encouraging  his  despond 
ent  and  somewhat  Werterean  friend,  "  be  hangman's  work  to  write 
articles  one  day  to  be  forgotten  to-morrow,  if  that  were  all ;  but  you 
forget  the  comfort — the  repayment.  If  one  prejudice  is  overthrown, 
one  error  rendered  untenable  ;  if  but  one  step  in  advance  be  the  con 
sequence  of  your  articles  and  mine — the  consequences  of  the  labour 
of  all  true  men — are  we  not  deeply  repaid  ?  " 

Or  again,  in  a  right  noble  letter  to  his  noble  mother : — 

"  That  money  of  R.'s  hangs  like  a  mill-stone  about  my  neck.  If  I 
had  paid  it,  I  would  never  borrow  again  from  mortal  man.  But  do 
not  mistake  me,  mother ;  I  am  not  one  of  those  men  who  faint  and 
falter  in  the  great  battle  of  life.  God  has  given  me  too  strong  a  heart 
for  that.  I  look  upon  earth  as  a  place  where  every  man  is  set  to 
struggle  and  to  work,  that  he  may  be  made  humble  and 'pure-hearted, 
and'fit  for  that  better  land  for  which  earth  is  a  preparation — to  which 
earth  is  the  gate.  ...  If  men  would  but  consider  how  little  of  real 
evil  there  is  in  all  the  ills  of  which  they  are  so  much  afraid — poverty 
included — there  would  be  more  virtue  and  happiness,  and  less  Avorld 
and  Mammon-worship  on  earth  than  is.  I  think,  mother,  that  to  me 


140  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

has  been  given  talent ;  and  if  so,  that  talent  was  given  to  make  it 
useful  to  man." 

And  yet,  there  is  a  quiet  self-respect  about  him  withal : — 

"  In  my  short  course  through  life,"  says  he  in  confidence  to  a  friend 
at  one-and-twenty,  "  I  have  never  feared  an  enemy,  or  failed  a  friend  ; 
and  I  live  in  the  hope  I  never  shall.  For  the  rest,  I  have  written  my 
heart  in  my  poems ;  and  rude  and  unfinished,  and  hasty  as  they  are,  it 
can  be  read  there." 

"  From  seven  years  of  age  to  this  very  hour,  I  have  been  dependent 
only  on  my  own  head  and  hands  for  every  thing — for  very  bread. 
Long  years  ago — ay,  even  in  childhood — adversity  made  me  think, 
and  feel,  and  suffer  ;  and  would  pride  allow  me,  I  could  tell  the  world 
many  a  deep  tragedy  enacted  in  the  heart  of  a  poor,  forgotten,  un 
cared-for  boy But  I  thank  God,  that  though  I  felt  and  suf 
fered,  the  scathing  blast  neither  blunted  my  perceptions  of  natural 
and  moral  beauty,  nor,  by  withering  the  affections  of  my  heart,  made 
me  a  selfish  man.  Often  when  I  look  back  I  wonder  how  I  bore  the 
burden — how  I  did  not  end  the  evil  day  at  once  and  for  ever." 

Such  is  the  man,  in  his  normal  state ;  and  as  was  to  be  ex 
pected,  God's  blessing  rests  on  him.  Whatever  he  sets  his  hand 
to,  succeeds.  Within  a  few  weeks  of  his  taking  the  editorship  of 
the  Leeds  Times,  its  circulation  begins  to  rise  rapidly,  as  was  to 
be  expected  with  an  honest  man  to  guide  it.  For  Nicoll's  polit 
ical  creed,  though  perhaps  neither  very  deep  nor  wide,  lies  clear 
and  single  before  him,  as  every  thing  else  which  he  does.  He 
believes  naturally  enough  in  ultra-Radicalism  according  to  the 
fashions  of  the  Reform  Bill  era.  That  is  the  right  thing ;  and 
for  that  he  will  work  day  and  night,  body  and  soul,  and  if  needs 
be,  die.  There,  in  the  editor's  den  at  Leeds,  he  "  begins  to  see 
the  truth  of  what  you  told  me  about  the  world's  unworthiness ; 
but  stop  a  little.  I  am  not  sad  as  yet  ....  If  I  am  hindered 
from  feeling  the  soul  of  poetry  among  woods  and  fields,  I  yet 
trust  I  am  struggling  for  something  worth  prizing — something  of 
which  I  am  not  ashamed,  and  need  not  be.  If  there  be  aught 
on  earth  worth  aspiring  to,  it  is  the  lot  of  him  who  is  enabled  to 
do  something  for  his  miserable  and  suffering  fellow-men ;  and 
this  you  and  I  will  try  to  do  at  least." 

His  friend  is  put  to  work  a  ministerial  paper,  with  orders 
"  not  to  be  rash,  but  to  elevate  the  population  gradually  ;  "  and 
finding  those  orders  to  imply  a  considerable  leaning  towards  the 
By-ends,  Lukewarm,  and  Facing-both-ways  school,  kicks  over 
the  traces,  wisely,  in  Nicoll's  eyes,  and  breaks  loose. 

"  Keep  up  your  spirits,"  says  honest  Nicoll.  "  You  are  higher  at 
this  moment  in  my  estimation,  in  your  own,  and  that  of  every  honest 


BUKNS  AND    HIS   SCHOOL.  141 

man,  than  you  ever  were  before.  Tait's  advice  was  just  such  as  I 
should  have  expected  of  him  ;  honest  as  honesty  itself.  You  must 
never  again  accept  a  paper  but  where  you  can  tell  the  whole  truth 
without  fear  or  favour.  .  .  .  Tell  E.  (the  broken-loose  editor's  lady 
love)  from  me  to  estimate  as  she  ought,  the  nobility  and  determination 
of  the  man  who  has  dared  to  act  as  you  have  done.  Prudent  men 
will  say  that  you  are  hasty  :  but  you  have  done  right,  whatever  may 
be  the  consequences." 

This  is  the  spirit  of  Robert  Nicoll ;  the  spirit  which  is  the 
fruit  of  early  purity  and  self-restraint,  of  living  "  on  bread  and 
cheese  and  water,"  that  he  may  buy  books  ;  of  walking  out  to 
the  Inch  of  Perth  at  four  o'clock  on  summer  mornings,  to  write 
and  read  in  peace  before  he  returns  to  the  currants  and  the 
whisky.  The  nervous  simplicity  of  the  man  comes  out  in  the 
very  nervous  simplicity  of  the  prose  he  writes  ;  and  though  there 
be  nothing  very  new  or  elevated  in  it,  or  indeed  in  his  poems 
themselves,  we  call  on  our  readers  to  admire  a  phenomenon  so 
rare,  in  the  "  upper  classes  "  at  least,  in  these  days,  and  taking  a 
lesson  from  the  peasant's  son,  rejoice  with  us  that  "  a  man  is  born 
into  the  world." 

For  Nicoll,  as  few  do,  practises  what  he  preaches.  It  seems 
to  him,  once  on  a  time,  right  and  necessary  that  Sir  William 
Molesworth  should  be  returned  for  Leeds  ;  and  Nicoll  having  so 
determined,  "  throws  himself,  body  and  soul,  into  the  contest, 
with  such  ardour,  that  his  wife  afterwards  said,  and  we  can  well 
believe  it,  that  if  Sir  William  had  failed,  Robert  would  have  died 
on  the  instant !  " — why  not  ?  Having  once  made  up  his  mind 
that  that  was  the  just  and  right  thing,  the  thing  which  was  abso 
lutely  good  for  Leeds,  and  the  human  beings  who  lived  in  it, 
was  it  not  a  thing  to  die  for,  even  if  it  had  been  but  the  election 
of  a  new  beadle  ?  The  advanced  sentry  is  set  to  guard  some 
obscure  worthless  dike-end — obscure  and  worthless  in  itself, 
but  to  him  a  centre  of  infinite  duty.  True,  the  fate  of  the 
camp  does  not  depend  on  its  being  taken ;  if  the  enemy  round  it, 
there  are  plenty  behind  to  blow  them  out  again.  But  that  is  no 
reason  whatsoever  why  he,  before  any  odds,  should  throw  his 
musket  over  his  shoulder,  and  retreat  gracefully  to  the  lines. 
He  was  set  there  to  stand  by  that,  whether  dike-end  or  repre 
sentation  of  Leeds  ;  that  is  the  right  thing  for  him  ;  and  for  that 
right  he  will  fight,  and  if  he  be  killed,  die.  So  have  all  brave 
men  felt,  and  so  have  all  brave  deeds  been  done,  since  man 
walked  the  earth.  It  is  because  that  spirit,  the  spirit  of  faith, 
has  died  out  among  us,,  that  so  few  brave  deeds  are  done  now, 
except  on  battle-fields,  and  in  hovels  whereof  none  but  God  and 
the  angels  know. 


142  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

So  the  man  prospers.  Several  years  of  honourable  and  self- 
restraining  love  bring  him  a  wife,  beautiful,  loving,  worshipping 
his  talents  ;  a  help-meet  for  him,  such  as  God  will  send  at  times 
to  those  whom  he  loves.  Kind  men  meet  and  love  and  help 
him — "  The  Johnstones,  Mr.  Tait,  William  and  Mary  Howitt ; " 
Sir  William  Molesworth,  hearing  of  his  last  illness,  sends  him, 
unsolicited,  fifty  pounds,  which,  as  we  understand  it,  Nicoll  ac 
cepts  without  foolish  bluster  about  independence.  Why  not  ? 
— man  should  help  man,  and  be  helped  by  him.  Would  he  not 
have  done  as  much  for  Sir  William  ?  Nothing  to  us  proves 
JNiicoll's  heart-wholeness  more  than  the  way  in  which  he  talks 
of  his  benefactors,  in  a  tone  of  simple  gratitude  and  affection, 
without  fawning,  and  without  vapouring.  The  man  has  too 
much  self-respect  to  consider  himself  lowered,  by  accepting  a 
favour. 

But  he  must  go  after  all.  The  editor's  den  at  Leeds  is  not 
the  place  for  lungs  bred  on  Perthshire  breezes ;  and  work  rises 
before  him,  huger  and  heavier  as  he  goes  on,  till  he  drops  under 
the  ever-increasing  load.  He  will  not  believe  it  at  first.  In 
sweet  childlike  playful  letters,  he  tells  his  mother  that  it  is  noth 
ing.  It  has  done  him  good — "  opened  the  grave  before  his  eyes, 
and  taught  him  to  think  of  death."  "  He  trusts  that  he  has  not 
borne  this,  and  suffered,  and  thought  in  vain."  This  too,  he 
hopes,  is  to  be  a  fresh  lesson-page  of  experience  for  his  work. 
Alas !  a  few  months  more  of  bitter  suffering  and  of  generous 
kindness,  and  love  from  all  around  him, — and  it  is  over  with  him, 
at  the  age  of  twenty-three.  Shall  we  regret  him  ? — shall  we  not 
rather  believe  that  God  knew  best,  and  considering  the  unhealthy 
moral  atmosphere  of  the  press,  and  the  strange  confused  ways 
into  which  old  ultra- Radicalism,  finding  itself  too  narrow  for  the 
new  problems  of  the  day,  has  stumbled  and  floundered  in  the 
last  fifteen  years,  believed  that  he  might  have  been  a  worse  man 
had  he  been  a  longer-lived  one,  and  thank  heaven  that  "  the 
righteous  is  taken  away  from  the  evil  to  come  ?  " 

As  it  is,  he  ends  as  he  began.  The  first  poem  in  his  book  is 
"  The  Ha'  Bible  ; "  and  the  last,  written  a  few  days  before  his 
death,  is  still  the  death-song  of  a  man — without  fear,  without 
repining,  without  boasting,  blessing  and  loving  the  earth  which 
he  leaves,  yet  with  a  clear  joyful  eye  upwards  and  outwards  and 
homewards.  And  so  ends  his  little  epic,  as  we  called  it.  May 
Scotland  see  many  such  another  ! 

The  actual  poetic  value  of  his  verses  is  not  first-rate  by  any 
means.  He  is  far  inferior  to  Burns  in  range  of  subject,  as  he  is 
in  humour  and  pathos.  Indeed,  there  is  very  little  of  these  latter 
qualities  in  him  anywhere — rather  playfulness,  flashes  of  child- 


BURNS   AND   HIS   SCHOOL.  143 

like  fun,  as  in  The  Provost,  and  Bonnie  Bessie  Lee.  £ut 
he  has  attained  a  mastery  over  English,  a  simplicity  and  quiet 
which  Burns  never  did  ;  and  also,  we  need  not  say,  a  moral 
purity.  His  "  poems,  illustrative  of  the  Scotch  peasantry,"  are 
charming  throughout — alive  and  bright  with  touches  of  real 
humanity,  and  sympathy  with  characters  apparently  antipodal  to 
his  own. 

His  more  earnest  poems  are  somewhat  tainted  with  that  car 
dinal  fault  of  his  school,  of  which  he  steered  so  clear  in  prose — 
fine  words  ;  yet  he  never,  like  the  Corn-Law  Rhymer,  falls  a  curs 
ing.  Pie  is  evidently  not  a  good  hater  even  of  "  priests  and 
kings,  and  aristocrats,  and  superstition  ;"  or  perhaps  he  worked 
all  that  froth  safely  over  and  off  in  debating  club-speeches  and 
leading  articles,  and  left  us,  in  these  poems,  the  genuine  Meth- 
eglin  of  his  inner  heart,  sweet,  clear,  and  strong ;  for  there  is 
no  form  of  lovable  or  right  thing  which  this  man  has  come 
across,  which  he  does  not  seem  to  have  appreciated.  Beside 
pure  love  and  the  beauties  of  nature,  those  on  which  every  man 
of  poetic  power — and  a  great  many  of  none,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  have  a  word  to  say,  he  can  feel  for  and  with  the  drunken 
beggar,  and  the  warriors  of  the  ruined  manor-house,  and  the 
monks  of  the  abbey,  and  the  old-mailed  Normans  with  their 
"  priest  with  cross  and  counted  beads  in  the  little  Saxon  chapel " 
— things  which  a  radical  editor  might  have  been  excused  for 
passing  by  with  a  sneer. 

His  verses  to  his  wife  are  a  delicious  little  glimpse  of  Eden ; 
and  his  People's  Anthem  rises  into  somewhat  of  true  grandeur 
by  virtue  of  simplicity : — 

"  Lord,  from  thy  blessed  throne, 
Sorrow  look  down  upon  ! 

God  save  the  Poor ! 
Teach  them  true  liberty — 
Make  them  from  tyrants  free — 
Let  their  homes  happy  be ! 

God  save  the  Poor ! 

"  The  arms  of  wicked  men 
Do  Thou  with  might  restrain — 

God  save  the  Poor! 
Raise  Thou  their  lowliness — 
Succour  Thou  their  distress — 
Thou  whom  the  meanest  bless ! 

God  save  the  Poor! 

"  Give  them  stanch  honesty — 
Let  their  pride  manly  be — 

God  save  the  Poor ! 
Help  them  to  hold  the  right; 
Give  them  both  truth  and  might, 
Lord  of  all  LIFE  and  LIGHT  ! 

God  save  the  Poor ! 


144  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 


so  we  leave  Robert  Nicoll,  with  the  parting  remark,  that 
if  the  "  poems  illustrative  of  the  feelings  of  the  intelligent  and 
religious  among  the  working-classes  of  Scotland  "  be  fair  samples 
of  that  which  they  profess  to  be,  Scotland  may  thank  God,  that 
in  spite  of  glen-clearings  and  temporary  manufacturing  rot-heaps, 
she  is  still  whole  at  heart,  and  that  the  influence  of  her  great 
peasant  poet,  though  it  may  seem  at  first  likely  to  be  adverse  to 
Christianity,  has  helped,  as  we  have  already  hinted,  to  purify 
and  not  to  taint;  to  destroy  the  fungus,  but  not  to  touch  the  heart 
of  the  grand  old  Covenant-kirk  life-tree. 

Still  sweeter,  and,  alas  !  still  sadder,  is  the  story  of  the  two 
Bethunes.  If  Nicoll's  life,  as  we  have  said,  be  a  solitary  melody, 
and  short  though  triumphant  strain  of  work-music,  theirs  is  a 
harmony  and  true  concert  of  fellow-joys,  fellow-sorrows,  fellow- 
drudgery,  fellow-authorship,  mutual  throughout,  lovely  in  their 
joint-life,  and  in  their  deaths  not  far  divided.  Alexander  sur 
vives  his  brother  John  only  long  enough  to  write  his  Memoirs, 
and  then  follows  ;  and  we  have  his  story  given  us  by  Mr. 
M'Combie,  in  a  simple  unassuming  little  volume  —  not  to  be  read 
without  many  thoughts,  perhaps  not  rightly  without  tears.  Mr. 
M'Combie  has  been  wise  enough  not  to  attempt  panegyric.  He 
is  all  but  prolix  in  details,  filling  up  some  half  of  his  volume 
with  letters  of  preternatural  length,  from  Alexander  to  his  pub 
lishers  and  critics,  and  from  the  said  publishers  and  critics  to 
Alexander,  altogether  of  an  unromantic  and  business-like  cast, 
but  entirely  successful  in  doing  that  which  a  book  should  do- 
namely,  in  showing  the  world  that  here  was  a  man  of  like 
passions  with  ourselves,  who  bore  from  boyhood  to  the  grave 
hunger,  cold,  wet,  rags,  brutalizing  and  health-destroying  toil, 
and  all  the  storms  of  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil,  and  con 
quered  them  every  one. 

Alexander  is  set  at  fourteen  to  throw  earth  out  of  a  ditch  so 
deep,  that  it  requires  the  full  strength  of  a  grown  man,  and  loses 
flesh  and  health  under  the  exertion  ;  he  is  twice  blown  up  in 
quarrying  with  his  own  blast,  and  left  for  dead,  recovers  slowly, 
maimed  and  scarred,  with  the  loss  of  an  eye.  John,  when  not 
thirteen,  is  set  to  stone-breaking  on  the  roads  during  intense  cold, 
and  has  to  keep  himself  from  being  frost-bitten  and  heart-broken 
by  monkey  gambols  ;  takes  to  the  weaving  trade,  and  having 
helped  his  family  by  the  most  desperate  economy  to  save  £10 
wherewith  to  buy  looms,  begins  to  work  them,  with  his  brother 
as  an  apprentice,  and  finds  the  whole  outlay  rendered  useless  the 
very  same  year  by  the  failures  of  1825-6.  So  the  two  return 
to  day-labour  at  fourteen  pence  a  day.  John  in  a  struggle  to  do 
task-work,  honestly  over-exerts  himself,  and  ruins  his  digestion 


BURNS   AND   HIS   SCHOOL. 


145 


for  life.  Next  year  he  is  set  in  November  to  clean  out  a  water 
course  knee-deep  in  water,  and  then  to  take  marl  from  a  pit,  and 
then  to  drain  standing  water  off  a  swamp  during  an  intense 
December  frost,  and  finds  himself  laid  down  with  a  three  months' 
cough,  and  all  but  sleepless  illness,  laying  the  foundation  of  the 
consumption  which  destroyed  him.  But  they  will  not  give  in. 
Poetry  they  will  write,  and  they  write  it  to  the  best  of  their 
powers  on  scraps  of  paper,  after  the  drudgery  of  the  day,  in  a 
cabin  pervious  to  every  shower,  teaching  themselves  the  right 
spelling  of  the  words  from  some  Christian  Remembrancer  or 
other — apparently  not  our  meek  and  unbiased  contemporary  of 
that  name  ;  and  all  this  without  neglecting  their  work  a  day  or 
even  an  hour,  when  the  weather  permitted — the  "  only  thing 
which  tempted  them  to  fret,"  being — hear  it  readers  and  perpend ! 
— "  the  being  kept  at  home  by  rain  and  snow."  Then  an  addi 
tional  malady  (apparently  some  calculous  one)  comes  on  John, 
and  stops  by  him  for  the  six  remaining  years  of  his  life.  Yet 
between  1826  and  1832,  John  has  saved  £14  out  of  his  misera 
ble  earnings,  to  be  expended  to  the  last  farthing  on  his  brother's 
recovery  from  the  second  quarry  accident.  Surely  the  devil  is 
trying  hard  to  spoil  these  men !  But  no.  They  are  made  per 
fect  by  sufferings.  In  the  house  with  one  long  narrow  room,  and 
a  small  vacant  space  at  the  end  of  it,  lighted  by  a  single  pane  of 
glass,  they  write  and  write  untiring,  during  the  long  summer 
evenings,  poetry,  Tales  of  the  Scottish  Peasant  Life,  which  at 
last  bring  them  in  somewhat ;  and  a  work  on  practical  economy, 
which  is  bepraised  and  corrected  by  kind  critics  in  Edinburgh, 
and  at  last  published— without  a  sale.  Perhaps  one  cause  of  its 
failure  might  be  found  in  those  very  corrections.  There  were 
too  many  violent  political  allusions  in  it,  complains  their  good 
Mentor  of  Edinburgh,  and  persuades  them,  seemingly  the  most 
meek  and  teachable  of  heroes,  to  omit  them  ;  though  Alexander, 
while  submitting,  pleads  fairly  enough  for  retaining  them,  in  a 
passage  which  we  will  give,  as  a  specimen  of  the  sort  of  English 
possible  to  be  acquired  by  a  Scotch  day-labourer,  self-educated, 
all  but  the  rudiments  of  reading  and  writing,  and  a  few  lectures 
on  popular  poetry  from  "  a  young  student  of  Aberdeen,"  now 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Adarnson,  who  must  look  back  on  the  friendship 
which  he  bore  these  two  young  men,  as  one  of  the  noblest  pages 
in  his  life. 

"  Talk  to  the  many  of  religion,  and  they  will  put  on  a  long  face, 
confess  that  it  is  a  thing  of  the  greatest  importance  to  all — and  go 
away  and  forget  the  whole.  Talk  to  them  of  education  :  they  will 
readily  acknowledge  that  its  '  a  braw  thing  to  be  weel  learned,'  and 
begin  a  lamentation,  which  is  only  shorter  than  the  lamentations  of 


146  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

Jeremiah,  because  they  cannot  make  it  as  long,  on  the  ignorance  of 
the  age  in  which  they  live  ;  but  they  neither  stir  hand  nor  foot  in  the 
matted.  But  speak  to  them  of  politics,  and  their  excited  countenances 
and  kindling  eye  show  in  a  moment  how  deeply  they  are  interested. 
Politics  are  ^therefore  an  important  feature,  and  an  almost  indispen 
sable  element  in  such  a  work  as  mine.  Had  it  consisted  solely  of 
exhortations  to  industry  and  rules  of  economy,  it  would  have  been 
dismissed  with  an  '  Ou  ay,  its  braw  for  him  to  crack  that  way ;  but  if 
he  were  whaur  we  are,  deed  he  wad  just  hae  to  do  as  we  do.'  But 
by  mixing  up  the  science  with  politics,  and  giving  it  an  occasional 
political  impetus,  a  different  result  may  be  reasonably  expected.  In 
these  days  no"  man  can  be  considered  a  patriot  or  friend  of  the  poor, 
who  is  not  also  a  politician." 

It  is  amusing,  by  the  by,  to  see  how  the  world  changes  its 
codes  of  respectability,  and  how,  what  is  anathema  one  year, 
becomes  trite  in  twenty  more.  The  political  sins  in  the  work 
were,  that  "  my  brother  had  attacked  the  corn-laws  with  some 
severity ;  and  I  have  attempted  to  level  a  battery  against  that 
sort  of  servile  homage  which  the  poor  pay  to  the  rich  ! " 

There  is  no  use  pursuing  the  story  much  further.  They 
again  save  a  little  money,  and  need  it ;  for  the  estate  on  which 
they  have  lived  from  childhood  changing  hands,  they  are,  with 
their  aged  father,  expelled  from  the  dear  old  dog-kennel,  to  find 
house-roorn  where  they  can.  Why  not  ? — "  it  was  not  in  the 
bond."  The  house  did  not  belong  to  them  ;  nothing  of  it,  at 
least,  which  could  be  specified  in  any  known  lease.  True,  there 
may  have  been  associations,  but  what  associations  can  men  be 
expected  to  cultivate  -on  fourteen  pence  a  day  ?  So  they  must 
forth,  with  their  two  aged  parents,  and  build  with  their  own 
hands  a  new  house  elsewhere,  having  saved  some  £30  from  the 
sale  of  their  writings.  The  house,  as  we  understand,  stands  to 
this  day — hereafter  to  become  a  sort  of  artisan's  caaba  and  pil 
grim's  station,  only  second  to  Burns's  grave.  That,  at  least,  it 
will  become,  whenever  the  meaning  of  the  words  "  worth  "  and 
"  worship  "  shall  become  rightly  understood  among  us. 

For  what  are  these  men,  if  they  are  not  heroes  and  saints  ? 
not  of  the  Popish  sort,  abject  and  effeminate,  but  of  the  true, 
human,  evangelic  sort,  masculine  and  grand — like  the  figures  in 
Raffaelle's  Cartoons,  compared  with  those  of  Fra  Bartoloineo. 
!Not  from  superstition,  not  from  selfish  prudence,  but  from  devo 
tion  to  their  aged  parents,  and  the  righteous  dread  of  dependence, 
they  die  voluntary  celibates,  although  their  writings  show  that 
they,  too,  could  have  loved  as  nobly  as  they  did  all  other  things. 
The  extreme  of  endurance,  self-restraint,  of  "  conquest  of  the 
flesh,"  outward  as  well  as  inward,  is  the  life-long  lot  of  these 
men  ;  and  they  go  through  it.  They  have  their  share  of  in- 


BURNS   AND   HIS   SCHOOL.  -^7 

justice,  tyranny,  disappointment ;  one  by  one  each  bright  boy's 
dream  of  success  and  renown  is  scourged  out  of  their  minds,  and 
sternly  and  lovingly  their  Father  in  heaven  teaches  them  the 
lesson  of  all  lessons.  By  what  hours  of  misery  and  blank  de 
spair  that  faith  was  purchased,  we  can  only  guess ;  the  simple, 
strong  men  give  us  the  result,  but  never  dream  of  sitting  down 
and  analyzing  the  process  for  the  world's  amusement,  or  their 
own  glorification.  We  question,  indeed,  whether  they  could 
have  told  us  ;  whether  the  mere  fact  of  a  man's  being  able  to 
dissect  himself,  in  public  or  in  private,  is  not  proof-patent  that 
he  is  no  man,  but  only  a  shell  of  a  man,  with  works  inside,  which 
can  of  course  be  exhibited  and  taken  to  pieces — a  rather  more 
difficult  matter  with  flesh  and  blood.  If  we  believe  that  God  is 
educating,  the  when,  the  where,  and  the  how,  are  not  only  unim 
portant,  but,  considering  who  is  the  teacher,  unfathomable  to  us, 
and  it  is  enough  to  be  able  to  believe  with  John  Bethune,  that  the 
Lord  of  all  things  is  influencing  us  through  all  things ;  whether 
sacraments,  or  sabbaths,  or  sun-gleams,  or  showers — all  things 
are  ours,  for  all  are  his,  and  we  are  his,  and  he  is  ours ; — and 
for  the  rest,  to  say  with  the  same  John  Bethune  : — 

"  Oh,  God  of  glory !  thou  hast  treasured  up 

For  me  my  little  portion  of  distress; 
But^with  each  draught — in  every  bitter  cup 

Thy  hand  hath  mixed,  to  make  its  soreness  less, 
Some  cordial  drop,  for  which  thy  name  I  bless, 
And  offer  up  my  rnite  of  thankfulness. 

Thou  hast  chastised  my  frame  with  dire  disease, 
Long,  obdurate,  and  painful;  and  thy  hand 

Hath  wrung  cold  sweat-drops  from  my  brow;  for  these 
I  thank  thee  too.     Though  pangs  at  thy  command 
Have  compassed  me  about,  still,  with  the  blow, 
Patience  sustained  my  soul  amid  its  woe." 

Of  the  actual  literary  merit  of  these  men's  writings  there  is 
less  to  be  said.  However  extraordinary,  considering  the  circum 
stances  under  which  they  were  written,  may  be  the  polish  and 
melody  of  John's  verse,  or  the  genuine  spiritual  health,  deep 
death -and-devil-defy ing  earnestness,  and  shrewd  practical  wis 
dom,  which  shines  through  all  that  either  brother  writes,  they 
do  not  possess  any  of  that  fertile  originality,  which  alone  would 
have  enabled  them,  as  it  did  Burns,  to  compete  with  the  literary 
savans,  who,  though  for  the  most  part  of  inferior  genius,  have 
the  help  of  information  and  appliances,  from  which  they  were 
shut  out.  Judging  them,  as  the  true  critic,  like  the  true  moralist, 
is  bound  to  do,  "according  to  what  they  had,  not  according  to 
what  they  had  not,"  they  are  men  who,  with  average  advantages, 
might  have  been  famous  in  their  day.  God  thought  it  better  for 
them  to  "  hide  them  in  his  tabernacle  from  the  strife  of  tongues," 


148  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

— and,  seldom  believed  truism,  he  knows  best.  Alexander  shall 
not,  according  to  his  early  dreams,  "  earn  nine  hundred  pounds 
by  writing  a  book,  like  Burns,"  even  though  his  ideal  method  of 
spending  be  to  buy  all  the  boys  in  the  parish  "  new  shoes  with 
iron  tackets  and  heels,"  and  send  them  home  with  shillings  for 
their  mothers,  and  feed  their  fathers  on  wheat  bread  and  milk, 
with  tea  and  bannocks  for  Sabbath-days,  and  build  a  house  for 
the  poor  old  toil-stiffened  man  whom  he  once  saw  draining  the 
hill-field,  "  with  a  yard  full  of  gooseberries,  and  an  apple-tree  !  " 
— not  that,  nor  even,  as  the  world  judges,  better  than  that,  shall 
he  be  allowed  to  do.  The  poor,  for  whom  he  writes  his  Prac 
tical  Economy,  shall  not  even  care  to  read  it ;  and  he  shall  go 
down  to  the  grave  a  failure  and  a  lost  thing  in  the  eyes  of  men  : 
— but  not  in  the  eyes  of  grand  God-fearing  old  Alison  Christie, 
his  mother,  as  he  brings  her,  scrap  by  scrap,  the  proofs  of  their 
dead  idol's  poems,  which  she  has  prayed  to  be  spared  just  to  see 
once  in  print,  and,  when  the  last  half-sheet  is  read,  loses  her  sight 
for  ever  ;  not  in  her  eyes,  nor  in  those  of  the  God  who  saw  him, 
in  the  cold  winter  mornings,  wearing  John's  clothes,  to  warm 
them  for  the  dying  man  before  he  got  up. 

His  grief  at  his  brother's  death  is  inconsolable.  He  feels  for 
the  first  time  in  his  life,  what  a  lot  his  is, — for  he  feels  for  the 
first  time  that — 

"  Parent  and  friend  and  brother  gone, 
I  stand  upon  the  earth  alone.'1 

Four  years  he  lingers  ;  friends  begin  to  arise  from  one  quarter 
and  another,  but  he,  not  altogether  wisely  or  well,  refuses  all 
pecuniary  help.  At  last  Mr.  Hugh  Miller  recommends  him  to 
be  editor  of  a  projected  "Non-Intrusion"  paper  in  Dumfries, 
with  a  salary,  to  him  boundless,  of  £100  a  year.  Too  late  !  The 
iron  has  entered  too  deeply  into  his  soul ;  in  a  few  weeks  more 
he  is  lying  in  his  brother's  grave, — "  Lovely  and  pleasant  in  their 
lives,  and  in  their  deaths  not  divided." 

"William  Thorn  of  Inverury"  is  a  poet  altogether  of  the  same 
school.  His  Rhymes  and  Recollections  of  a  Handloom  Weaver 
are  superior  to  those  of  either  Nicoll  or  the  Bethunes,  the  little 
love  songs  in  the  volume  reminding  us  of  Burns's  best  manner, 
and  the  two  languages  in  which  he  writes  being  better  amalga 
mated,  as  it  seems  to  us,  than  in  any  Scotch  song  writer.  More 
over,  there  is  a  terseness,  strength,  and  grace  about  some  of  these 
little  songs,  which  would  put  to  shame  many  a  volume  of  vague 
and  windy  verse,  which  the  press  sees  yearly  sent  forth  by  men, 
who,  instead  of  working  at  the  loom,  have  been  pampered  from 
their  childhood  with  all  the  means  and  appliances  of  good  taste  and 


BURNS   AND   HIS   SCHOOL.  149 

classic  cultivation.  We  have  room  only  for  one  specimen  of  his 
verse,  not  the  most  highly  finished,  but  of  a  beauty  which  can 
speak  for  itself. 

"DREAMINGS  OF  THE  BEREAVED. 

"  The  morning  breaks  bonny  o'er  mountain  and  stream, 
An'  troubles  the  hallowed  breath  of  my  dream. 
The  gowd  light  of  morning  is  sweet  to  the  e'e, 
But  ghost-gathering  midnight,  thou'rt  dearer  to  me. 
The  dull  common  world  then  sinks  from  my  sight, 
And  fairer  creations  arise  to  the  night; 
When  drowsy  oppression  has  sleep-sealed  my  e'e, 
Then  bright  are  the  visions  awakened  to  me'! 

"  Oh,  come,  spirit-mother!  discourse  of  the  hours 
My  young  bosom  beat  all  its  beating  to  yours, 
When  heart-woven  wishes  in  soft  counsel  fell 
On  ears — how  unheedful,  proved  sorrow  might  tell ! 
That  deathless  affection  nae  sorrow  could  break ; 
When  all  else  forsook  me,  ye  would  na  forsake ; 
Then  come,  oh  my  mother !  come  often  to  me, 
An'  soon  an'  forever  I'll  come  unto  thee ! 

"  An'  then,  shrouded  loveliness !  soul-winning  Jean, 
How  cold  was  thy  hand  on  my  bosom  yestreen ! 
'Twas  kind — for  the  love  that  your  e'e  kindled  there 
Will  burn,  aye  an'  burn,  till  that  breast  beat  nae  mair — 
Our  bairnies  sleep  round  me,  oh  bless  ye  their  sleep ! 
JYtgur  ain  dark  eyed  Willie  will  wauken  an'  weep ! 
But  blythe  through  his  weepin',  he'll  tell  me  how  you, 
His  heaven-hamed  mammie,  was  dautlng  his  brow. 

"  Though  dark  be  our  dwellin',  our  happin'  tho'  bare, 
An'  night  closes  round  us  in  cauldness  and  care, 
Affection  will  warm  us — and  bright  are  the  beams 
That  halo  our  hame  in  yon  dear  land  o'  dreams : 
Then  weel  may  I  welcome  the  night's  deathly  reign, 
Wi'  souls  of  the  dearest  I  mingle  me  then; 
The  gowd  light  of  morning  is  lightless  to  me, 
But,  oh!  for  the  night  with  its  ghost  revelrie!  " 

But,  even  more  interesting  than  the  poems  themselves,  is  the 
autobiographical  account  prefixed,  with  its  vivid  sketches  of  fac 
tory  life  in  Aberdeen,  of  the  old  regime  of  1770,  when  "four 
days  did  the  weaver's  work, — Sunday,  Monday,  Tuesday,  were 
of  course  jubilee.  Lawn  frills  gorged  (?)  freely  from  under  the 
wrists  of  his  fine  blue,  gilt-buttoned  coat.  He  dusted  his  head 
with  white  flour  on  Sunday,  smirked  and  wore  a  cane  ;  walked 
in  clean  slippers  on  Monday  ;  Tuesday  heard  him  talk  war  bra 
vado,  quote  Volney,  and  get  drunk  :  weaving  commenced  gradu 
ally  on  Wednesday.  Then  were  little  children  pirn-fillers,  and 
such  were  taught  to  steal  warily  past  the  gate-keeper,  concealing 
the  bottle.  These  wee  smugglers  had  a  drop  for  their  services, 
over  and  above  their  chances  of  profiting  by  the  elegant  and 


150  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

edifying  discussions  uttered  in  their  hearing.  Infidelity  was 
then  getting  fashionable."  But  by  the  time  Thorn  enters  on 
his  seventeen  years'  weaving,  in  1814,  the  nemesis  has  come. 
"  Wages  are  six  shillings  a  week  where  they  had  been  forty ; 
but  the  weaver  of  forty  shillings,  with  money  instead  of  wit,  had 
bequeathed  his  vices  to  the  weaver  of  six  shillings,  with  wit 
instead  of  money."  The  introduction  of  machinery  works  evil 
rather  than  good,  on  account  of  the  reckless  way  in  which  it  is 
used,  and  the  reckless  material  which  it  uses.  "  Vacancies  in 
the  factory  daily  made,  were  daily  filled  by  male  and  female 
workers  ;  often  queer  enough  people,  and  from  all  parts, — none 
too  coarse  for  using.  The  pickpocket,  trained  to  the  loom  six 
months  in  Bridewell,  came  forth  a  journeyman  weaver,  and  his 
precious  experiences  were  infused  into  the  common  moral  pud 
dle,  and  in  due  time  did  their  work."  No  wonder  that  "  the  dis 
tinctive  character  of  all  sunk  away.  Man  became  less  manly — 
woman  unlovely  and  rude."  No  wonder  that  the  factory,  like 
too  many  more,  though  a  thriving  concern  to  its  owners,  becomes 
"  a  prime  nursery  of  vice  and  sorrow."  "  Virtue  perished  utterly 
within  its  walls,  and  was  dreamed  of  no  more  ;  or,  if  remembered 
at  all,  only  in  a  deep  and  woful  sense  of  self-debasement — 
a  struggling  to  forget,  where  it  was  hopeless  to  obtain."  But  to 
us,  almost  the  most  interesting  passage  in  his  book,  and  certainly 
the  one  which  bears  most  directly  on  the  general  purpose  of  this 
article,  is  one  in  which  he  speaks  of  the  effects  of  song  on  him 
self  and  his  fellow  factory- workers. 

"  Moore  was  doing  all  he  could  for  love-sick  boys  and  girls,  yet  they 
had  never  enough  !  Nearer  and  dearer  to  hearts  like  ours  was  the 
Ettrick  Shepherd,  then  in  his  full  tide  of  song  and  story ;  but  nearer 
and  dearer  still  than  he,  or  any  living  songster,  was  our  ill-fated  fellow- 
craftsman,  Tannahill.  Poor  weaver  chiel  !  what  we  owe  to  you  ! — 
your  Braes  of  Balquidder,  and  Yon  Burnside,  and  Gloomy  Winter,  and 
the  Minstrel's  wailing  ditty,  and  the  noble  Gleneiffer.  Oh  !  how  they 
did  ring  above  the  rattle  of  a  thousand  shuttles  !  Let  me  again  pro 
claim  the  debt  which  we  owe  to  those  song-spirits,  as  they  walked  in 
melody  from  loom  to  loom,  ministering  to  the  low-hearted  ;  and  when 
the  breast  was  filled  with  every  thing  but  hope  and  happiness,  let  only 
break  out  the  healthy  and  vigorous  chorus,  A  man's  a  man  for  a'  that, 
and  the  fagged  weaver  brightens  up.  .  .  .  Who  dare  measure  the  re 
straining  influences  of  these  very  songs  ?  To  us  they  were  all  instead 
of  Sermons.  Had  one  of  us  been  bold  enough  to  enter  a  church, 
he  must  have  been  ejected  for  the  sake  of  decency.  His  forlorn  and 
curiously  patched  habiliments  would  have  contested  the  point  of  attrac 
tion  with  the  ordinary  eloquence  of  that  period.  Church  bells  rang 
not  for  us.  Poets  were  indeed  our  priests  :  but  for  those,  the  last  relic 
of  moral  existence  would  have  passed  away.  Song  was  the  dew-drop 
which  gathered  during  the  long  dark  night  of  despondency,  and  was 


BURNS   AND   HIS   SCHOOL.  151 

sure  to  glitter  in  the  very  first  blink  of  the  sun.  You  might  have  seen 
Auld  Robin  Gray  wet  the  eyes  that  could  be  tearless  amid  cold  and 
hunger,  and  weariness  and  pain.  Surely,  surely,  then  there  was  to  that 
heart  one  passage  left" 

Making  all  allowance  for  natural  and  pardonable  high-colour 
ing,  we  recommend  this  most  weighty  and  significant  passage  to 
the  attention  of  all  readers,  and  draw  an  aryumentum  a  fortiori, 
from  the  high  estimation  in  which  Thorn  holds  those  very  songs 
of  Tannahill's,  of  which  we  just  now  spoke  somewhat  depreciat 
ingly,  for  the  extreme  importance  which  we  attach  to  popular 
poetry,  as  an  agent  of  incalculable  power  in  moulding  the  minds 
of  nations. 

The  popular  poetry  of  Germany  has  held  that  great  nation 
together,  united  and  heart-whole  for  centuries,  in  spite  of  every 
disadvantage  of  internal  division,  and  the  bad  influence  of  foreign 
taste  ;  and  the  greatest  of  their  poets  have  not  thought  it  be 
neath  them  to  add  their  contributions,  and  their  very  best,  to 
the  common  treasure,  meant  not  only  for  the  luxurious  and 
learned,  but  for  the  workman  and  the  child  at  school.  In  Great 
Britain,  on  the  contrary,  the  people  have  been  left  to  form  their 
own  tastes,  and  choose  their  own  modes  of  utterance,  with  great 
results,  both  for  good  and  evil ;  and  there  has  sprung  up  before 
the  new  impulse  which  Burns  gave  to  popular  poetry,  a  consid 
erable  literature — considerable  not  only  from  its  truth  and  real 
artistic  merit,  but  far  more  so  from  its  being  addressed  principally 
to  the  working-classes.  Even  more  important  is  this  people's  liter 
ature  question  in  our  eyes,  than  the  more  palpable  factors  of  the 
education  question,  about  which  we  now  hear  such  ado.  It  does 
seem  to  us,  that  to  take  every  possible  precaution  about  the  spirit 
ual  truth  which  children  are  taught  in  school,  and  then  leave  to 
chance  the  more  impressive  and  abiding  teaching  which  popular 
literature,  songs  especially,  give  them  out  of  doors,  is  as  great  a 
niaiserie  as  that  of  the  Tractarians  who  insisted  on  getting  into 
the  pulpit  in  their  surplices,  as  a  sign  that  the  clergy  only  had 
the  right  of  preaching  to  the  people,  while  they  forgot  that,  by 
means  of  a  free  press,  (of  the  license  of  which  they  too  were  not 
slack  to  avail  themselves,)  every  penny-a-liner  was  preaching  to 
the  people  daily,  and  would  do  so,  maugre  their  surplices,  to  the 
end  of  time.  The  man  who  makes  the  people's  songs  is  a  true  popu 
lar  preacher.  Whatsoever,  true  or  false,  he  sends  forth,  will  not 
be  carried  home,  as  a  sermon  often  is,  merely  in  heads,  to  be  for 
gotten  before  the  week  is  out :  it  will  ring  in  the  ears,  and  cling 
round  the  imagination,  and  follow  the  pupil  to  the  workshop,  and 
the  tavern,  and  the  fireside,  even  to  the  deathbed,  such  power  is 
in  the  magic  of  rhyme.  The  emigrant,  deep  in  Australian  forests, 


152  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

may  take  down  Chalmers's  sermons  on  Sabbath  evenings  from 
the  scanty  shelf;  but  the  songs  of  Burns  have  been  haunting  his 
lips,  and  cheering  his  heart,  and  moulding  him  unconsciously  to 
himself,  in  clearing  and  in  pasture  all  the  weary  week.  True, 
if  he  be  what  a  Scotchman  should  be,  more  than  one  old  Hebrew 
psalm  has  brought  its  message  to  him  during  these  week-days ; 
but  there  are  feelings  of  his  nature  on  which  those  psalms,  not 
from  defect,  but  from  their  very  purpose,  do  not  touch ;  how 
is  he  to  express  them,  but  in  the  songs  which  echo  them  ? 
These  will  keep  alive,  and  intensify  in  him,  and  in  the  children 
who  learn  them  from  his  lips,  all  which  is  like  themselves.  Is 
it,  we  ask  again,  to  be  left  to  chance  what  sort  of  songs  these 
shall  be  ? 

As  for  poetry  written  for  the  working-classes  by  the  upper, 
such  attempts  at  it  as  we  yet  have  seen,  may  be  considered  nil. 
The  upper  must  learn  to  know  more  of  the  lower,  and  to  make 
the  lower  know  more  of  them — a  frankness  of  which  we  honestly 
believe  they  will  never  have  to  repent.  Moreover,  they  must 
read  Burns  a  little  more,  and  Cavaliers  and  Jacobites  a  little  less. 
As  it  is,  their  efforts  have  been  as  yet  exactly  in  that  direction 
which  would  most  safely  secure  the  blessings  of  undisturbed 
obscurity.  Whether  "  secular  "  or  "  spiritual,"  they  have  thought 
proper  to  adopt  a  certain  Tommy-good-child  tone,  which,  whether 
to  Glasgow  artisans  or  Dorsetshire  labourers,  or  indeed  for  any 
human  being  who  is  "  grinding  among  the  iron  facts  of  life,"  is, 
to  say  the  least,  nauseous  ;  and  the  only  use  of  their  poematicula 
lias  been  to  demonstrate  practically,  the  existence  of  a  great  and 
fearful  gulf  between  those  who  have,  and  those  who  have  not,  in 
thought  as  well  as  in  purse,  which  must  be,  in  the  former  article 
at  least,  bridged  over  as  soon  as  possible,  if  we  are  to  remain  one 
people  much  longer.  The  attempts  at  verse  for  children  are 
somewhat  more  successful — a  certain  little  Moral  Songs,  es 
pecially,  said  to  emanate  from  the  Tractarian  School,  yet  full  of 
a  health,  spirit,  and  wild  sweetness,  which  makes  its  authoress, 
in  our  eyes,  "  wiser  than  her  teachers."  But  this  is  our  way. 
We  are  too  apt  to  be  afraid  of  the  men,  and  take  to  the  children 
as  our  pis  aller,  covering  our  despair  of  dealing  with  the  major 
ity,  the  adult  population,  in  a  pompous  display  of  machinery  for 
influencing  that  very  small  fraction,  the  children.  "  Oh,  but  the 
destinies  of  the  empire  depend  on  the  rising  generation  !  "  Who 
has  told  us  so  ? — how  do  we  know  that  they  do  not  depend  on 
the  risen  generation  ?  Who  are  likely  to  do  more  work  during 
our  lifetime,  for  good  and  evil, — those  who  are  now  between 
fifteen  and  five-and-forty,  or  those  who  are  between  five  and 
fifteen  ?  Yet  for  those  former,  the  many,  and  the  working,  and 


BURNS  AND  HIS  SCHOOL.  153 

the  powerful,  all  we  seem  to  be  inclined  to  do  is  to  parody  Scrip 
ture,  and  say,  "  He  that  is  unjust,  let  him  be  unjust  still ;  and  he 
that  is  filthy,  let  him  be  filthy  still." 

Not  that  we  ask  any  one  to  sit  down,  and,  out  of  mere  benev 
olence,  to  write  songs  for  the  people.    Wooden,  out  of  a  wooden 
birthplace,  would  such   go  forth,  to  feed  fires,  not  spirits.     But 
if  any  man  shall  read  these  pages,  to  whom  God  has  given  a 
truly  poetic  temperament,  a  gallant  heart,  a  melodious   ear,  a 
quick    and  sympathetic    eye  for  all  forms  of  human  joy,  and 
sorrow,  and  humour,  and  grandeur, — an  insight  which  can  dis 
cern  the  outlines  of  the  butterfly  when  clothed  in  the  roughest  and 
most  rugged  chrysalis-hide  ;  if  the  teachers  of  his  heart  and  pur 
poses,  and  not  merely  of  his  taste  and  sentiments,  have  been  the 
great  songs  of  his  own  and  of  every  land  and  age ;  if  he  can  see 
in  the  divine  poetry  of  David  and  Solomon,  of  Isaiah  and  Jere 
miah,  and,  above  all,  in  the  parables  of  Him  who  spake  as  never 
man  spake,  the  models  and  elemental  laws  of  a  people's  poetry, 
alike  according  to  the  will  of  God  and  the  heart  of  man  ;  if  he 
can  welcome  gallantly  and   hopefully  the  future,  and  yet  know 
that  it  must  be,  unless  it  would  be  a  monster  and  a  machine,  the 
loving  and  obedient  child  of  the  past ;  if  he  can  speak  of  the 
subjects  which  alone  will  interest  the  many,  on  love,  marriage, 
the  sorrows  of  the  poor,  their  hopes,  political  and  social,  their 
wrongs,  as  well  as  their  sins  and  duties  ;  and  that  with  a  fervour 
and  passion  akin  to  the  spirit  of  Burns  and  Elliott,  yet  with  more 
calm,  more  purity,  more  wisdom,  and  therefore  with  more  hope, 
as   one  who    stands   upon  a  vantage-ground  of  education   and 
culture,  sympathizing  none  the  less  with  those  who  struggle  be 
hind  him  in  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  yet  seeing  from 
the  mountain-peaks  the  coming  dawn,  invisible  as  yet  to  them. 
Then  let  that  man  think  it  no  fall,  but  rather  a  noble  rise,  to 
shun  the  barren  glacier  ranges  of  pure  art,  for  the  fertile  gar 
dens  of  practical  and  popular  song,  and  write  for  the  many,  and 
with  the  many,  in  words  such  as  they  can  understand,  remem 
bering  that  that  which  is  simplest  is  always   deepest,  that  the 
many  contain  in  themselves  the  few,  and  that  when  he  speaks 
to  the  wanderer  and   the  drudge,  he  speaks    to  the  elemental 
and  primeval  man,  and  in  him  speaks  to  all  who  have  risen  out 
of  him.      Let   him  try,  undiscouraged  by  inevitable  failures  ; 
and  if  at  last  he  succeeds  in  giving  vent  to  one  song  which  will 
cheer  hardworn  hearts  at  the  loom  and  the  forge,  or  wake  one 
pauper's  heart  with  the  hope  that  his  children  are  destined  not 
to  die  as  he  died,  or  recall,  amid  Canadian  forests  or  Australian 
sheep-walks,  one  thrill  of  love  for  the  old  country,  and  her  lib 
erties,  and  her  laws,  and  her  religion,  to  the   settler's  heart ; — 


154  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

let  that  man  know  that  he  has  earned  a  higher  place  among  the 
spirits  of  the  wise  and  good,  by  doing,  in  spite  of  the  unpleasant 
ness  of  self-denial,  the  duty  which  lay  nearest  him,  than  if  he 
had  outrivalled  Goethe  on  his  own  classic  ground,  and  made 
all  the  cultivated  and  the  comfortable  of  the  earth  desert,  for 
the  exquisite  creations  of  his  fancy,  Faust,  and  Tasso,  and 
Iphigenie. 


HOURS   WITH  THE  MYSTICS.  155 


HOURS  WITH  THE  MYSTICS. 

's  Magazine.] 


FEW  readers  of  this  magazine  probably  know  any  thing  about 
"  Mystics  ;  "  know  even  what  the  term  means  ;  but  as  it  is  plainly 
connected  with  the  adjective  "  mystical,"  they  probably  suppose 
it  to  denote  some  sort  of  vague,  dreamy,  sentimental,  and  there 
fore  useless  and  undesirable,  personage.  Nor  can  we  blame 
them  if  they  do  so  ;  for  mysticism  is  a  form  of  thought  and  feel 
ing  now  all  but  extinct  in  England.  There  are  probably  not  ten 
thorough  mystics  among  all  our  millions  ;  the  mystic  philosophers 
are  very  little  read  by  our  scholars,  and  read  not  for  but  in  spite 
of  their  mysticism  ;  and  our  popular  theology  has  so  completely 
rid  itself  of  any  mystic  elements,  that  our  divines  look  with  utter 
disfavour  upon  it,  use  the  word  always  as  a  term  of  opprobrium, 
and  interpret  the  mystic  expressions  in  our  liturgy  —  which  mostly 
occur  in  the  Collects  —  according  to  the  philosophy  of  Locke, 
really  ignorant,  it  would  seem,  that  they  were  written  by  Plato- 
nist  mystics. 

We  do  not  blame  them,  either,  save  in  as  far  as  teachers  of 
men  are  blameworthy  for  being  ignorant  of  any  form  of  thought 
which  has  ever  had  a  living  hold  upon  good  and  earnest  men, 
and  may  therefore  take  hold  of  them  again.  But  the  English 
are  not  a  mystic  people,  any  more  than  the  old  Romans  were  ; 
their  habit  of  mind,  their  destiny  in  the  world,  are  like  those  of 
the  Romans,  altogether  practical  ;  and  who  can  be  surprised  if 
they  do  not  think  about  what  they  are  not  called  upon  to  think 
about  ? 

Nevertheless,  it  is  quite  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  mysticism  is 
by  its  own  nature  unpractical.  The  greatest  and  most  prosper 
ous  races  of  antiquity  —  the  Egyptians,  Babylonians,  Hindoos, 
Greeks  —  had  the  mystic  element  as  strong  and  living  in  them  as 
the  Germans  have  now  ;  and  certainly  we  cannot  call  them 

Hours  with  the  Mystics.     By  Kobert  Alfred  Vaughan,  B.  A. 


156  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

unpractical  peoples.  They  fell  and  came  to  ruin — as  the  Ger 
mans  seem  but  too  likely  to  do — when  their  mysticism  became 
unpractical:  but  their  thought  remained,  to  be  translated  into 
practice  by  sounder-hearted  races  than  themselves.  Rome  learnt 
from  Greece,  and  did,  in  some  confused  imperfect  way,  that 
which  Greece  only  dreamed ;  just  as  future  nations  may  act  here 
after,  nobly  and  usefully,  on  the  truths  which  Germans  discover, 
only  to  put  in  a  book  and  smoke  over.  For  they  are  terribly 
practical  people,  these  mystics,  quiet  students  and  devotees  as  they 
may  seem.  They  go,  or  seem  to  go,  down  to  the  roots  of  things, 
in  a  way ;  and  lay  foundations  on  which — be  they  sound  or 
unsound — those  who  come  after  them  cannot  choose  but  build,  as 
we  are  building  now.  For  our  forefathers  were  mystics  for  gen 
erations  ;  they  were  mystics  in  the  forests  of  Germany  and  in  the 
dales  of  Norway ;  they  were  mystics  in  the  convents  and  the 
universities  of  the  middle  ages  ;  they  were  mystics,  all  the  deep 
est  and  noblest  minds  of  them,  during  the  Elizabethan  era. 

Even  now  the  few  mystic  writers  of  this  island  are  exercising 
more  influence  on  thought  than  any  other  men,  for  good  or  for 
evil.  Coleridge  and  Alexander  Knox  have  changed  the  minds, 
and  with  them  the  acts,  of  thousands  ;  and  when  they  are 
accused  of  having  originated,  unknowingly,  the  whole  "  Tracta- 
rian  "  movement,  those  who  have  watched  English  thought  care 
fully,  can  only  answer,  that  on  the  confession  of  the  elder 
Tractarians  themselves,  the  allegation  is  true :  but  that  they 
originated  a  dozen  other  "  movements  "  beside  in  the  most  oppo 
site  directions,  and  that  free-thinking  Emersonians  will  be  as 
ready  as  Romish  perverts  and  good  plain  English  churchmen  to 
confess  that  the  critical  point  of  their  life  was  determined  by  the 
writings  of  the  fakeer  of  Highgate.  At  this  very  time,  too,  the 
only  real  mystic  of  any  genius  who  is  writing  and  teaching  is 
exercising  more  practical  influence,  infusing  more  vigorous  life 
into  the  minds  of  thousands  of  men  and  women,  than  all  the  other 
teachers  of  England  put  together;  and  has  set  rolling  a  ball 
which  may  in  the  next  half  century  gather  into  an  avalanche, 
perhaps  utterly  different  in  form,  material,  and  direction,  from  all 
which  he  expects. 

So  much  for  mystics  being  unpractical.  If  we  look  faith 
fully  into  the  meaning  of  their  name,  we  shall  see  why,  for  good 
or  for  evil,  they  cannot  be  unpractical ;  why  they,  let  them  be  the 
most  self-absorbed  of  recluses,  are  the  very  men  who  sow  the 
seeds  of  great  schools,  great  national  and  political  movements, 
even  great  religions. 

A  mystic — according  to  the  Greek  etymology — should  signify 
one  who  is  initiated  into  mysteries :  one  whose  eyes  are  opened 


HOUKS  WITH  THE  MYSTICS.  157 

to  see  things  which  other  people  cannot  see.  And  the  true  mys 
tic,  in  all  ages  and  countries,  has  believed  that  this  was  the  case 
with  him.  He  believes  that  there  is  an  invisible  world  as  well 
as  a  visible  one — so  do  most  men  ;  but  the  mystic  believes  also 
that  this  same  invisible  world  is  not  merely  a  supernumerary  one 
world  more,  over  and  above  the  earth  on  which  he  lives,  and  the 
stars  over  his  head,  but  that  it  is  the  cause  of  them  and  the 
ground  of  them ;  that  it  was  the  cause  of  them  at  first,  and  is 
the  cause  of  them  now,  even  to  the  budding  of  every  flower,  and 
the  falling  of  every  pebble  to  the  ground ;  and  therefore,  that 
having  been  before  this  visible  world,  it  will  be  after  it,  and 
endure  just  as  real,  living,  and  eternal,  though  matter  were  anni 
hilated  to-morrow. 

"  But,  on  this  showing,  every  Christian,  nay,  every  religious 
an,  is  a  mystic  ;  for  he  believes  in  an  invisible  world  ?  "  Them 
answer  is  found  in  the  plain  fact,  that  good  Christians  here  in 
England  do  not  think  so  themselves  ;  that  they  dislike  and  dread 
mysticism,  would  not  understand  it  if  it  were  preached  to  them ; 
are  more  puzzled  by  those  utterances  of  St.  John,  which  mystics 
have  always  claimed  as  justifying  their  theories,  than  by  any  part 
of  their  bibles.  There  is  a  positive  and  conscious  difference 
between  popular  metaphysics  and  mysticism  ;  and  it  seems  to  lie 
in  this :  the  invisible  world  in,  which  Englishmen  in  general 
believe,  is  one  which  happens  to  be  invisible  now,  but  will  not  be 
so  hereafter.  When  they  speak  of  the  other  world,  they  mean  a 
place  which  their  bodily  eyes  will  see  some  day,  and  could  see 
now  if  they  were  allowed ;  when  they  speak  of  spirits,  they 
mean  ghosts  who  could,  and  perhaps  do,  make  themselves  visible 
to  men's  bodily  eyes.  We  are  not  inquiring  here  whether  they 
be  right  or  wrong ;  we  are  only  specifying  a  common  form  of 
human  thought. 

The  mystic,  on  the  other  hand,  believes  that  the  invisible 
world  is  so  by  its  very  nature,  and  must  be  so  for  ever.  He  lives 
therein  now,  he  holds,  and  will  live  in  it  through  eternity :  but 
he  will  see  it  never  with  any  bodily  eyes,  not  even  with  the  eyes 
of  any  future  "  glorified "  body.  It  is  ipso  facto  not  to  be  seen, 
only  to  be  believed  in ;  never  for  him  will  "  faith  be  changed  for 
sight,"  as  the  popular  theologians  say  that  it  will ;  for  this  invisi 
ble  world  is  only  to  be  "  spiritually  discerned." 

This  is  the  mystic  idea,  pure  and  simple ;  of  course  there  are 
various  grades  of  it,  as  there  are  of  the  popular  one,  for  no  man 
holds  his  own  creed  and  nothing  more ;  and  it  is  good  for  him,  in 
this  piecemeal  and  shortsighted  world,  that  he  should  not.  Were 
he  over-true  to  his  own  idea,  he  would  become  a  fanatic,  perhaps 
a  madman.  And  so  the  modern  evangelical  of  the  Verm  and 


158  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

Newton  school,  to  whom  mysticism  is  a  pet  neology  and  nehush- 
tan,  when  he  speaks  of  "  spiritual  experiences,"  uses  the  adjective 
in  its  purely  mystic  sense  ;  while  Bernard  of  Cluny,  in  his  once 
famous  hymn,  Hie  breve  vivitur,  mingles  the  two  conceptions  of 
the  unseen  world  in  inextricable  confusion.  Between  these  two 
extreme  poles,  in  fact,  we  have  every  variety  of  thought,  and  it 
is  good  for  us  that  we  should  have  them  ;  for  no  one  man  or 
school  of  men  can  grasp  the  whole  truth,  and  every  intermediate 
modification  supplies  some  link  in  the  great  cycle  of  facts  which 
its  neighbours  have  overlooked. 

In  the  minds  who  have  held  this  belief,  that  the  unseen  world 
is  the  only  real  and  eternal  one,  there  has  generally  existed  a 
belief,  more  or  less  confused,  that  the  visible  world  is  in  some 
mysterious  way  a  pattern  or  symbol  of  the  invisible  one ;  that  its 
physical  laws  are  the  analogues  of  the  spiritual  laws  of  the  eter 
nal  world :  a  belief  of  which  Mr.  Vaughan  seems  to  think  lightly  ; 
though  if  it  be  untrue  we  can  hardly  see  how  that  metaphoric 
illustration  in  which  he  indulges  so  freely,  and  which  he  often 
uses  in  a  masterly  and  graceful  way,  can  be  anything  but  useless 
trifling.  For  what  is  a  metaphor  or  a  simile  but  a  mere  paralo 
gism — having  nothing  to  do  with  the  matter  in  hand,  and  not  to 
be  allowed  for  a  moment  to  influence  the  reader's  judgment, 
unless  there  be  some  real  and, objective  analogy — homology  we 
should  call  it — between  the  physical  phenomenon  from  which  the 
symbol  is  taken,  and  the  spiritual  truth  which  it  is  meant  to 
illustrate  ?  What  divineness,  what  logical  weight,  in  our  Lord's 
parables,  unless  he  was  by  them  trying  to  show  his  hearers  that 
the  laws  which  they  saw  at  work  in  the  lilies  of  the  field,  in  the 
most  common  occupations  of  men,  were  but  lower  manifestations 
of  the  laws  by  which  are  governed  the  inmost  workings  of  the 
human  spirit  ?  What  triflers,  on  any  other  ground,  were  Socrates 
and  Plato.  What  triflers,  too,  Shakspeare  and  Spenser.  Indeed, 
we  should  say  that  it  is  the  beliefj  conscious  or  unconscious,  of 
the  eternal  correlation  of  the  physical  and  spiritual  worlds  which 
alone  constitutes  the  essence  of  a  poet. 

Of  course  this  idea  led,  and  would  necessarily  lead,  to  follies 
and  fancies  enough,  as  long  as  the  phenomena  of  nature 
were  not  carefully  studied,  and  her  laws  scientifically  inves 
tigated  ;  and  all  the  dreams  of  Paracelsus  or  Van  Helmont, 
Cardan  or  Oollius,  Baptista  Porta  or  Behmen,  are  but  the  nat 
ural  and  pardonable  errors  of  minds  which,  while  they  felt  deeply 
the  sanctity  and  mystery  of  nature,  had  no  Baconian  philosophy 
to  tell  them  what  nature  actually  was,  and  what  she  actually 
said.  But  their  idea  lives  still,  and  will  live  as  long  as  the  belief 
in  a  one  God  lives.  The  physical  and  spiritual  worlds  cannot  be 


HOURS  WITH  THE  MYSTICS.  159 

separated  by  an  impassable  gulf.  They  must,  in  some  way  or 
other,  reflect  each  other,  even  in  their  minutest  phenomena,  for 
so  only  can  they  both  reflect  that  absolute  primaeval  Unity  in 
whom  they  both  live  and  move  and  have  their  being.  Mr. 
Vaughan's  object,  however,  has  not  been  to  work  out  in  his  book 
such  problems  as  these.  Had  he  done  so,  he  would  have  made 
his  readers  understand  better  what  mysticism  is  ;  he  would  have 
avoided  several  hasty  epithets,  by  the  use  of  which  he  has,  we 
think,  deceived  himself  into  the  notion  that  he  has  settled  a  mat 
ter  by  calling  it  a  hard  name  ;  he  would  have  explained,  per 
haps,  to  himself  and  to  us,  many  strange  and  seemingly  contra 
dictory  facts  in  the  annals  of  mysticism.  But  he  would  also  not 
have  written  so  readable  a  book.  On  the  whole  he  has  taken 
the  right  course,  though  one  wishes  that  he  had  carried  it  out 
more  methodically. 

A  few  friends,  literate  and  comfortable  men,  and  right-hearted 
Christians  withal,  meet  together  to  talk  over  these  same  mystics, 
and  to  read  papers  and  extracts  which  will  give  a  general  notion 
of  the  subject  from  the  earliest  historic  times.  The  gentlemen 
talk  about  and  about  a  little  too  much ;  they  are  a  little  too  fond 
of  illustrations  of  the  popular  pulpit  style  ;  they  are  often  apt  to 
say  each  his  say,  with  very  little  care  of  what  the  previous 
speaker  has  uttered ;  in  fact,  these  conversations  are,  as  conver 
sations,  not  good,  but  as  centres  of  thought  they  are  excellent. 
There  is  not  a  page  nor  a  paragraph  in  which  there  is  not  some 
thing  well  worth  recollecting,  and  often  reflections  very  wise  and 
weighty  indeed,  which  show  that,  whether  or  not  Mr.  Vaughan 
has  thoroughly  grasped  the  subject  of  mysticism,  he  has  grasped 
and  made  part  of  his  own  mind  and  heart  many  things  far  more 
practically  important  than  mysticism,  or  any  other  form  of 
thought ;  and  no  one  ought  to  rise  up  from  the  perusal  of  his 
book,  without  finding  himself,  if  not  a  better,  at  least  a  more 
thoughtful  man,  and  perhaps  a  humbler  one  also,  as  he  learns 
how  many  more  struggles  and  doubts,  discoveries,  sorrows  and 
joys,  the  human  race  has  passed  through  than  are  contained  in 
his  own  private  experience. 

The  true  value  of  the  book  is,  that  though  not  exhaustive  of 
the  subject,  it  is  suggestive.  It  affords  the  best,  indeed  the  only 
general,  sketch  of  the  subject  which  we  have  in  England,  and 
gives  therein  boundless  food  for  future  thought  and  reading  ;  and 
the  country  parson,  or  the  thoughtful  professional  man  who  has 
no  time  to  follow  out  the  question  for  himself,  much  less  to  hunt 
out  and  examine  original  documents,  may  learn  from  these  pages 
a  thousand  curious  and  interesting  hints  about  men  of  like  pas 
sions  with  himself,  and  about  old  times,  the  historv  of  which — 


160  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

as  of  all  times — was  not  the  history  of  their  kings  and  queens,  but 
of  the  creeds  and  deeds  of  the  "  masses  "  who  worked,  and  failed, 
and  sorrowed,  and  rejoiced  again,  unknown  to  fame.  While 
whatsoever  their  own  conclusions  may  be  on  the  subject-matter 
of  the  book,  they  will  hardly  fail  to  admire  the  extraordinary 
variety  and  fulness  of  Mr.  Vaughan's  reading,  and  wonder  when 
they  hear — unless  we  are  wrongly  informed — that  he  is  quite  a 
young  man, 

How  one  small  head  could  compass  all  he  knew. 

He  begins  with  the  mysticism  of  the  Hindoo  Yogis.  And  to 
this,  as  we  shall  hereafter  show,  he  hardly  does  justice ;  but  we 
wish  now  to  point  out  in  detail  the  extended  range  of  subjects,  of 
each  of  which  the  book  gives  some  general  notion.  From  the 
Hindoos  he  passes  to  Philo  and  the  nco-Platonists  ;  from  them 
to  the  pseudo-Dionysius,  and  the  mysticism  of  the  early  Eastern 
Church.  He  then  traces,  shrewdly  enough,  the  influence  of  the 
pseudo-Areopagite  and  the  Easterns  on  the  bolder  and  more 
practical  minds  of  the  Western  Latins,  and  gives  a  sketch  of 
Bernard  and  his  Abbey  of  Clairvaux,  which  brings  pleasantly 
enough  before  us  the  ways  and  works  of  a  long-dead  world, 
which  was  all  but  inconceivable  to  us  till  Mr.  Carlyle  disinterred 
it  in  his  picture  of  Abbot  Sampson,  the  hero  of  Past  and  Present. 

We  are  next  introduced  to  the  mystic  schoolmen — Hugo,  and 
Richard  of  St.  Victor ;  and  then  to  a  far  more  interesting  class 
of  men,  and  one  with  which  Mr.  Vaughan  has  more  sympathy 
than  with  any  of  his  characters,  perhaps  because  he  knows  more 
about  them.  His  chapters  on  the  German  mysticism  of  the 
fourteenth  century  ;  his  imaginary,  yet  fruitful  chronicle  of 
Adolf  of  Arnstein,  with  its  glimpses  of  Meister  Eckart,  Suso, 
the  "  Nameless  Wild,"  Ruysbroek,  and  Tauler  himself,  are  admi 
rable,  if  merely  as  historic  studies,  and  should  be,  and  we  doubt 
not  will  be,  read  by  many  as  practical  commentaries  on  the 
Theologia  Germanica,  and  on  the  selection  from  Tauler's  Ser 
mons,  now  in  course  of  publication.  Had  all  the  book  been 
written  as  these  chapters  are,  we  should  not  have  had  a  word  of 
complaint  to  make,  save  when  we  find  ihe  author  passing  over 
without  a  word  of  comment,  utterances  which,  right  or  wrong, 
contain  the  very  key-note  and  central  idea  of  the  men  whom  he 
is  holding  up  to  admiration,  and  as  we  think,  of  mysticism  itself. 
There  is,  for  instance,  a  paragraph  attributed  to  Ruysbroek,  in 
p.  275,  vol.  i.,  which,  whether  true  or  false — and  we  believe  it 
to  be  essentially  true — is  so  inexpressibly  important,  both  in  the 
subject  which  it  treats,  and  in  the  way  in  which  it  treats  it,  that 


HOUES   WITH  THE   MYSTICS.  161 

twenty  pages  of  comment  on  it  would  not  have  been  misdevoted. 
Yet  it  is  passed  by  without  a  word. 

Going  forward  to  the  age  of  the  Reformation,  the  book  then 
gives  us  a  spirited  glimpse  of  John  Bokelson  and  the  Munster 
Anabaptists,  of  Carlstadt  and  the  Zurichian  prophets,  and  then 
dwells  at  some  length  on  the  attempt  of  that  day,  to  combine 
physical  and  spiritual  science  in  occult  philosophy.  We  have 
enough  to  make  us  wish  to  hear  more  of  Cornelius  Agrippa, 
Paracelsus,  and  Behmen,  with  their  alchemy,  "  true  magic," 
doctrines  of  sympathies,*  signatures  of  things,  cabbala,  and 
Gamahea,  and  the  rest  of  that  (now  fallen)  inverted  pyramid  of 
pseudo-science.  His  estimate  of  Behmen  and  his  writings,  we 
may  observe  in  passing,  is  both  sound  and  charitable,  and  speaks 
as  much  for  Mr.  Yaughan's  heart  as  for  his  head.  Then  we 
have  a  little  about  the  Rosicrucians  and  the  Comte  de  Gabalis, 
and  the  theory  of  the  Rabbis,  from  whom  the  Rosicrucians  bor 
rowed  so  much,  all  told  in  the  same  lively  manner,  all  utterly 
new  to  ninety-nine  readers  out  of  a  hundred,  all  indicating,  we 
are  bound  to  say,  a  much  more  extensive  reading  than  appears 
on  the  page  itself. 

From  these  he  passes  to  the  mysticism  of  the  counter-Refor 
mation,  especially  to  the  two  great  Spanish  mystics,  St.  Theresa 
and  St.  John  of  the  Cross.  Here  again  he  is  new  and  interest 
ing;  but  we  must  regret  that  he  has  not  been  as  merciful  to 
Theresa  as  he  has  to  poor  little  John. 

He  then  devotes  some  eighty  pages — and  very  well  employed 
they  are — in  detailing  the  strange  and  sad  story  of  Madame 
Guyon,  and  the  "  Quietest "  movement  at  Louis  Quatorze's  court. 
Much  of  this  he  has  taken,  with  all  due  acknowledgment,  from 
Upham  ;  but  he  has  told  the  story  most  pleasantly,  in  his  own 
way,  and  these  pages  will  give  a  better  notion  of  Fenelon,  and  of 
the  "Eagle"  (for  eagle,  read  vulture)  "of  Meaux,"  old  Bossuet, 
than  they  are  likely  to  find  elsewhere  in  the  same  compass. 

Following  chronological  order  as  nearly  as  he  can,  he  next 
passes  to  George  Fox  and  the  early  Quakers,  introducing  a 
curious — and  in  our  own  case  quite  novel — little  episode  con 
cerning  The  History  of  Hai  Ebn  Yokhdan,  a  mediaeval  Arabian 
romance,  which  old  Barclay  seems  to  have  got  hold  of  and 
pressed  into  the  service  of  his  sect,  taking  it  for  literal  truth. 

The  twelfth  book  is  devoted  to  Swedenborg,  and  a  very  valu- 

*  Why  has  Mr.  Vaughan  omitted  to  give  us  a  few  racy  lines  on  Sir  Matthew 
Hale's  Divine  Contemplations  of  the  Magnet,  Sir  Kenelm  Digby's  Weapon-Salve, 
and  Valentine  Greatrake's  Magnetic  Cures  ?  He  should  have  told  the  world  a 
little,  too,  about  the  strange  phenomenon  of  the  Jesuit  Kircher,  in  whom  Po 
pery  attempted  to  recover  the  very  ground  which  Behmen  and  the  Protestant 
nature-mystics  were  conquering  from  them. 


162  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

able  little  sketch  it  is,  and  one  which  goes  far  to  clear  up  the 
moral  character,  and  the  reputation  for  sanity,  also,  of  that  much 
calumniated  philosopher,  whom  the  world  knows  only  as  a 
dreaming  false  prophet,  forgetting  that  even  if  he  was  that,  he 
was  also  a  sound  and  severe  scientific  labourer,  to  whom  our 
modern  physical  science  is  most  deeply  indebted. 

This  is  a  short  sketch  of  the  contents  of  a  book  which  is  a 
really  valuable  addition  to  English  literature,  and  which  is  as 
interesting  as  it  is  instructive.  But  Mr.  Vaughan  must  forgive 
us  if  we  tell  him  frankly  that  he  has  not  exhausted  the  subject ; 
that  he  has  hardly  defined  mysticism  at  all — at  least,  has  defined 
it  by  its  outward  results,  and  that  without  classifying  them  ;  and 
that  he  has  not  grasped  the  central  idea  of  the  subject.  There 
were  more  things  in  these  same  mystics  than  are  dreamt  of  in 
his  philosophy  ;  and  he  has  missed  seeing  them,  because  he  has 
put  himself  rather  in  the  attitude  of  a  judge  than  of  an  inquirer. 
He  has  not  had  respect  and  trust  enough  for  the  men  and  women 
of  whom  he  writes,  and  is  too  much  inclined  to  laugh  at  them,  and 
treat  them  de  haul  en  bas.  He  has  trusted  too  much  to  his  own  great 
power  of  logical  analysis,  and  his  equally  great  power  of  illus 
tration,  and  is  therefore  apt  to  mistake  the  being  able  to  put  a 
man's  thoughts  into  words  for  him,  for  the  being  really  able  to 
understand  him.  To  understand  any  man,  we  must  have  sym 
pathy  for  him,  even  affection.  No  intellectual  acuteness,  no 
amount  even  of  mere  pity  for  his  errors,  will  enable  us  to  see 
the  man  from  within,  and  put  our  own  souls  into  the  place  of  his 
soul.  To  do  that,  one  must  feel  and  confess  within  one's  self  the 
seeds  of  the  very  same  errors  which  one  reproves  in  him  ;  one 
must  have  passed  more  or  less  through  his  temptations,  doubts, 
hungers  of  heart  and  brain ;  and  one  cannot  help  questioning,  as 
one  reads  Mr.  Vaughan's  book,  whether  he  has  really  done  this 
in  the  case  of  those  of  whom  he  writes.  He  should  have  remem 
bered,  too,  how  little  any  young  man  can  have  experienced  of 
the  terrible  sorrows  which  branded  into  the  hearts  of  these  old 
devotees  the  truths  to  which  they  clung  more  than  to  lite,  while 
they  too  often  warped  their  hearts  into  morbidity,  and  caused 
alike  their  folly  and  their  wisdom.  Gently  indeed  should  we 
speak  even  of  the  dreams  of  some  self-imagined  "  Bride  of 
Christ,"  when  we  picture  to  ourselves  the  bitter  agonies  which 
must  have  been  endured  ere  a  human  soul  could  develop  so 
fantastically-diseased  a  growth.  "  She  was  only  a  hysterical 
nun."  Well,  and  what  more  tragical  object,  to  those  who  will 
look  patiently  and  lovingly  at  human  nature,  than  a  hysterical 
nun  ?  She  may  have  been  driven  into  a  convent  by  some  disap 
pointment  in  love.  And  has  not  disappointed  affection  been 


HOURS   WITH  THE   MYSTICS.  163 

confessed,  in  all  climes  and  ages,  to  enshroud  its  victim  ever 
after,  as  it  were,  in  a  sanctuary  of  reverent  pity  ?  If  sorrow 
"  broke  her  brains,"  as  well  as  broke  her  heart,  shall  we  do 
aught  but  love  her  the  more  for  her  capacity  of  love-?  Or  she 
may  have  entered  the  convent,  as  thousands  did,  in  girlish  sim 
plicity,  to  escape  from  a  world  which  she  had  not  tried,  before 
she  had  discovered  that  the  world  could  give  her  something 
which  the  convent  could  not.  What  more  tragical  than  her 
discovery  in  herself  of  a  capacity  for  love  which  could  never  be 
satisfied  within  that  prison  ? — and  worse,  when  that  capacity 
began  to  vindicate  itself  in  strange  forms  of  disease,  seemingly 
to  her  supernatural,  often  agonizing,  often  degrading,  and  at  the 
same  time  (strange  contradiction)  mixed  itself  up  with  her 
noblest  thoughts,  to  ennoble  them  still  more,  and  inspire  her 
with  a  love  for  all  that  is  fair  and  lofty,  for  self-devotion  and 
self-sacrifice,  such  as  she  had  never  felt  before  ?  Shall  we 
blame  her — shall  we  even  smile  at  her,  if,  after  the  dreadful 
question,  "  Is  this  the  possession  of  a  demon  ?  "  had  alternated 
with  "  Is  this  the  inspiration  of  a  god  ?  "  she  settled  down,  as  the 
only  escape  from  madness  and  suicide,  into  the  latter  thought, 
and  believed  that  she  found  in  the  ideal  and  perfect  manhood  of 
One  whom  she  was  told  to  revere  and  love  as  a  God,  and  who 
had  sacrificed  his  own  life  for  her,  a  substitute  for  that  merely 
human  affection  from  which  she  was  for  ever  debarred  ?  Why 
blame  her  for  not  remembering  that  which  was  wanting,  or 
making  straight  that  which  was  crooked  ?  Let  God  judge  her, 
not  we  ;  and  the  fit  critics  of  her  conduct  are  not  the  easy 
gentlemanlike  scholars,  like  Mr.  Vaughan's  Athertons  and  Go\v- 
ers,  discussing  the  "  aberrations  of  fanaticism  "  over  wine  and 
walnuts  ;  or  the  gay  girl,  Kate  ;  hardly  even  the  happy  mother, 
Mrs.  Atherton  :  but  those  whose  hairs  are  gray  with  sorrow  ; 
who  have  been  softened  at  once  and  hardened  in  the  fire  of  God ; 
who  have  cried  out  of  the  bottomless  deep  like  David,  while 
lover  and  friend  were  hid  away  from  them,  and  they  lay  amid 
the  corpses  of  their  dead  hopes,  dead  health,  dead  joy,  as  on  a 
ghastly  battle-field,  "  stript  among  the  dead,  like  those  who  are 
wounded,  and  cut  away  from  God's  hands ; "  who  have  struggled 
drowning  in  the  horrible  mire  of  doubt,  and  have  felt  all  God's 
billows  and  waves  sweep  over  them,  till  they  were  weary  of 
crying,  and  their  sight  failed  for  waiting  so  long  upon  God  ;  and 
all  the  faith  and  prayer  which  was  left  was,  u  Thou  wilt  not  leave 
my  soul  in  hell,  nor  suffer  thy  Holy  One  to  see  corruption."  Be 
it  understood,  however,  for  fear  of  any  mistake,  that  we  hold 
Mr.  Vaughan  to  be  simply  and  altogether  right  in  his  main  idea. 
His  one  test  for  all  these  people,  and  all  which  they  said  or  did, 


164  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

is — Were  they  made  practically  better  men  and  women  thereby  ? 
lie  sees  clearly  that  the  "  spiritual "  is  none  other  than  the 
"  moral " — that  which  has  to  do  with  right  and  wrong  ;  and  he 
has  a  righteous  contempt  for  every  thing  and  any  thing,  however 
graceful  and  reverent,  and  artistic  and  devout,  and  celestial  and 
super-celestial,  except  in  as  far  as  he  finds  it  making  men  and 
women  do  better  work  in  every-day  life.  Therefore  he  is 
altogether  right  at  heart ;  and  any  criticisms  of  ours  on  his  book 
are  but  amantium  irce. 

And  therefore  we  will  protest  against  such  a  sketch  as  this, 
even  of  one  of  the  least  honourable  of  the  middle-age  saints  : — 

ATHERTON.  Angela  de  Foligni,  who  made  herself  miserable — I 
must  say  something  the  converse  of  flourished — about  the  beginning 
of  the  fourteenth  century,  was  a  fine  model  pupil  of  this  sort,  a  gen 
uine  daughter  of  St.  Francis.  Her  mother,  her  husband,  her  children 
dead,  she  is  alone  and  sorrowful.  She  betakes  herself  to  violent 
devotion — falls  ill — suffers  incessant  anguish  from  a  complication  of 
disorders — has  rapturous  consolations  and  terrific  temptations — is 
dashed  in  a  moment  from  a  seat  of  glory  above  the  empyrean  .  .  . 

Very  amusing,  is  it  not?  To  have  one's  mother,  husband, 
children  die — the  most  commonplace  sort  of  thing — what  (over 
one's  wine  and  walnuts)  one  describes  as  being  "  alone  and  sor 
rowful."  Men  who  having  tasted  the  blessings  conveyed  in 
those  few  words,  have  also  found  the  horror  conveyed  in  them, 
have  no  epithets  for  the  state  of  mind  in  which  such  a  fate  would 
leave  them.  They  simply  pray  that  if  that  hour  came,  they 
might  just  have  faith  enough  left  not  to  curse  God  and  die.  Amus 
ing,  too,  her  falling  ill,  and  suffering  under  a  complication  of  dis 
orders,  especially  if  those  disorders  were  the  fruit  of  combined 
grief  and  widowhood.  Amusing,  also,  her  betaking  herself  to 
violent  devotion.  In  the  first  place,  if  devotion  be  a  good  thing, 
could  she  have  too  much  of  it  ?  If  it  be  the  way  to  make  people 
good  (as  is  commonly  held  by  all  Christian  sects,)  could  she 
become  too  good  ?  The  more  important  question  which  springs 
out  of  the  fact,  we  will  ask  presently.  "  She  has  rapturous  con 
solations  and  terrific  temptations."  Do  you  mean  that  the  con 
solations  came  first,  and  that  the  temptations  were  a  revulsion 
from  "  spiritual "  exaltation  into  "  spiritual "  collapse  and  melan 
choly,  or  that  the  temptations  came  first,  and  the  consolations 
came  after  to  save  her  from  madness  and  despair  ?  Either  may 
be  the  case  ;  perhaps  both  were :  but  somewhat  more  of  care 
should  have  been  taken  in  expressing  so  important  a  spiritual 
sequence  as  either  case  exhibits. 

It  is  twelve  years  and  more  since  we  studied  the  history  of 


HOUKS   WITH  THE   MYSTICS.  165 

the  "  B.  Angela  de  Foligni,"  and  many  another  kindred  saint ;  and 
we  cannot  recollect  what  were  the  terrific  temptations,  what  was 
the  floor  of  hell  which  the  poor  thing  saw  yawning  beneath  her 
feet.  But  we  must  ask  Mr.  Vaughan,  has  he  ever  read  Boccaccio, 
or  any  of  the  Italian  novelists  up  to  the  seventeenth  century  ? 
And  if  so,  can  he  not  understand  how  Angela  de  Foligni,  the 
lovely  Italian  widow  of  the  fourteenth  century,  had  her  terrific 
temptations,  to  which  if  she  had  yielded,  she  might  have  fallen 
to  the  lowest  pit  of  hell,  let  that  word  mean  what  it  may ;  and 
temptations  all  the  more  terrific  because  she  saw  every  widow 
round  her  considering  them  no  temptations  at  all,  but  yielding  to 
them,  going  out  to  invite  them  in  the  most  business-like,  nay, 
duty-like,  way  ?  What  if  she  had  "  rapturous  consolations  ?  " 
What  if  she  did  pour  out  to  One  who  was  worthy  not  of  less 
but  of  more  affection  than  she  offered  in  her  passionate  southern 
heart,  in  language  which  in  our  colder  northerns  would  be  mere 
hypocrisy,  yet  which  she  had  been  taught  to  believe  lawful  by 
that  interpretation  of  the  Canticles  which  (be  it  always  remem 
bered)  is  common  to  Evangelicals  and  to  Romanists  ?  What  if 
even,  in  reward  for  her  righteous  belief,  that  what  she  saw  all 
widows  round  her  doing,  was  abominable  and  to  be  avoided  at  all 
risks,  she  were  permitted  to  enjoy  a  passionate  affection,  which 
after  all  was  not  misplaced  ?  There  are  mysteries  in  religion,  as 
in  all  things,  where  it  is  better  not  to  intrude  behind  the  veil. 
Wisdom  is  justified  of  all  her  children,  and  folly  may  be  justified 
of  some  of  her  children  also.  Let  Mr.  Vaughan  consider  Boc 
caccio,  and  reconsider  his  harshness  to  poor  Angela ;  let  him 
reconsider,  too,  his  harshness  to  poor  St.  Brigitta, — in  our  eyes  a 
beautiful  and  noble  figure.  A  widow  she,  too — and  what  worlds 
of  sorrow  are  there  in  that  word,  especially  when  applied  to  the 
pure  deep-hearted  Northern  woman,  as  she  was, — she  leaves  her 
Scandinavian  pine-forests  to  worship  and  to  give  wherever  she 
can,  till  she  arrives  at  Rome,  the  centre  of  the  universe,  the  seat 
of  Christ's  vicegerent,  the  city  of  God,  the  gate  of  Paradise. 
Thousands  of  weary  miles  she  travels,  through  danger  and  sor 
row — and  when  she  finds  it,  behold,  it  is  a  lie  and  a  sham ;  not 
the  gate  of  Paradise,  but  the  gate  of  Sodom  and  of  hell.  Was 
not  that  enough  to  madden  her,  if  mad  she  became  ?  What 
matter  after  that  her  "  angel  dictated  discourses  on  the  Blessed 
Virgin,"  "  bombastic  invocations  to  the  Saviour's  eyes,  ears, 
hair  ?  " — they  were  at  least  the  best  objects  of  worship  which 
the  age  gave  her.  In  one  thing  she  was  right,  and  kept  her  first 
love.  "  What  was  not  quite  so  bad,  she  gives  to  the  world  a 
series  of  revelations,  in  which  the  vices  of  popes  and  prelates 
are  lashed  unsparingly,  and  threatened  with  speedy  judgment." 


166  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

Not  quite  so  bad.  To  us  the  whole  phenomenon  wears  an  utterly 
different  aspect.  At  the  risk  of  her  life,  at  the  risk  of  being 
burned  alive — did  any  one  ever  consider  what  that  means  ? — the 
noble  horsewoman,  like  an  Alruna  maid  of  old,  hurls  out  her 
divine  hereditary  hatred  of  sin  and  filth  and  lies.  At  last  she 
falls  back  on  Christ  himself  as  the  only  home  for  a  homeless  soul 
in  such  an  evil  time.  And  she  is  not  burnt  alive.  The  hand 
of  One  mightier  than  she  is  over  her,  and  she  is  safe  under  the 
shadow  of  his  wings,  till  her  weary  work  is  done  and  she  goes 
home,  her  righteousness  accepted  for  his  sake  :  her  folly, 
hysterics,  dreams — call  them  by  what  base  name  we  will — for 
given  and  forgotten  for  the  sake  of  her  many  sorrows,  and  her 
faithfulness  to  the  end. 

Mr.  Vaughan  must  reconsider  these  sketches ;  but  he  need 
not  reconsider  his  admirable  reflections  on  them,  every  word  of 
which  is  true  : — 

"  What  a  condemning  comment  on  the  pretended  tender  mercies  of 
the  Church  are  those  narratives  which  Rome  delights  to  parade  of  the 
sufferings,  mental  and  bodily,  which  her  devotees  were  instructed  to 
inflict  upon  themselves !  I  am  reminded  of  the  thirsting  mule,  which 
has,  in  some  countries,  to  strike  with  its  hoof  among  the  spines  of  the 
cactus,  and  drink,  with  lamed  foot  and  bleeding  lips,  the  few  drops  of 
milk  which  ooze  from  the  broken  thorns.  Affectionate  suffering 
natures  came  to  Rome  for  comfort ;  but  her  scanty  kindness  is  only  to 
be  drawn  with  anguish  from  the  cruel  sharpness  of  asceticism.  The 
worldly,  the  audacious,  escape  easily ;  but  these  pliant,  excitable  tem 
peraments,  so  anxiously  in  earnest,  may  be  made  useful.  The  more 
dangerous,  frightful,  or  unnatural  their  performances,  the  more  profit 
for  their  keepers.  Men  and  women  are  trained  by  torturing  processes 
to  deny  their  nature,  and  then  they  are  exhibited  to  bring  grist  to  the 
mill — like  birds  and  beasts  forced  to  postures  and  services  against  the 
laws  of  their  being — like  those  who  must  perform  perilous  feats  on 
ropes  or  with  lions,  nightly  hazarding  their  lives  to  fill  the  pockets  of 
a  manager.  The  self-devotion  of  which  Home  boasts  so  much  is  a  self- 
devotion  she  has  always  thus  made  the  most  of  for  herself.  Calculat 
ing  men,  who  have  thought  only  of  the  interest  of  the  priesthood, 
have  known  well  how  best  to  stimulate  and  to  display  the  spasmodic 
movements  of  a  brainsick  disinterestedness.  I  have  not  the  shadow 
of  a  doubt  that,  once  and  again,  some  priest  might  have  been  seen, 
with  cold,  gray  eye,  endeavouring  to  do  a  stroke  of  diplomacy  by 
means  of  the  enthusiastic  Catharine,  making  the  fancied  ambassadress 
of  heaven  in  reality  the  tool  of  a  schemer.  Such  unquestionable 
virtues  as  these  visionaries  may  some  of  them  have  possessed,  cannot 
be  fairly  set  down  to  the  credit  of  the  Church,  which  has  used  them 
all  for  mercenary  or  ambitious  purposes,  and  infected  them  everywhere 
with  a  morbid  character.  Some  of  these  mystics,  floating  down  the 
great  ecclesiastical  current  of  the  Middle  Age,  appear  to  me  like  the 
trees  carried  away  by  the  inundation  of  some  mighty  tropical  river. 


HOURS   WITH   THE  MYSTICS.  ]  57 

They  drift  along  the  stream,  passive,  lifeless,  broken ;  yet  they  are 
covered  with  gay  verdure,  the  aquatic  plants  hang  and  twine  about 
the  sodden  timber  and  the  draggled  leaves,  the  trunk  is  a  sailing 
garden  of  flowers.  But  the  adornment  is  not  that  of  nature — it  is 
the  decoration  of  another  and  a  strange  element ;  the  roots  are  in  the 
air  ;  the  boughs,  which  should  be  full  of  birds,  are  in  the  flood,  covered 
by  its  alien  products,  swimming  side  by  side  with  the  alligator.  So 
has  this  priestcraft  swept  its  victims  from  their  natural  place  and  in 
dependent  growth,  to  clothe  them,  in  their  helplessness,  with  a  false 
spiritual  adornment,  neither  scriptural  nor  human,  but  ecclesiastical — 
the  native  product  of  that  overwhelming  superstition  which  has  sub 
verted  and  enslaved  their  nature.  The  Church  of  Rome  takes  care 
that  while  simple  souls  think  they  are  cultivating  Christian  graces, 
they  shall  be  forging  their  own  chains  ;  that  their  attempts  to  honour 
God  shall  always  dishonour,  because  they  disenfranchise  themselves. 
To  be  humble,  to  be  obedient,  to  be  charitable,  under  such  direction, 
is  to  be  contentedly  ignorant,  pitably  abject,  and  notoriously  swindled." 

Mr.  Vaughan  cannot  be  too  severe  upon  the  Romish  priest 
hood.  But  it  is  one  thing  to  dismiss  with  summary  contempt 
men  who,  as  they  do,  keep  the  keys  of  knowledge,  and  neither 
enter  in  themselves  nor  suffer  others  to  enter,  and  quite  another 
thing  to  apply  the  same  summary  jurisdiction  to  men  who,  under 
whatsoever  confusions,  are  feeling  earnestly  and  honestly  after 
truth.  And  therefore  we  regret  exceedingly  the  mock  trial  which 
he  has  introduced  into  his  Introduction.  We  regret  it  for  his 
own  sake ;  for  it  will  drive  away  from  the  book — indeed,  it  has 
driven — thoughtful  and  reverent  people  who,  having  a  strong 
though  vague  inclination  toward  the  mystics,  might  be  very 
profitably  taught  by  the  after  pages  to  separate  the  evil  from  the 
good  in  the  Bernards  and  Guyons  whom  they  admire,  they  scarce 
know  why;  and  will  shock,  too,  scholars  to  whom  Hindoo  and 
Persian  thoughts  on  these  subjects  are  matters  not  of  ridicule, 
but  of  solemn  and  earnest  investigation.  We  do  hope  to  see 
these  pages  vanish  from  a  future  edition,  or  if  they  be  retained, 
put  at  the  end  and  not  at  the  beginning  of  the  book.  As  it  is, 
they  are  a  needless  stumbling-block  upon  the  threshold. 

Besides,  the  question  is  not  so  easily  settled.  Putting  aside 
the  flippancy  of  the  passage,  it  involves  something  very  like  a 
petitio  principii  to  ask  off  hand  "  Does  the  man  mean  a  living 
union  of  heart  to  Christ,  a  spiritual  fellowship  or  converse  with 
the  Father,  when  he  talks  of  the  union  of  the  believer  with  God 
— participation  in  the  Divine  nature  ?  "  For  first,  what  we  want 
to  know  is,  the  meaning  of  the  words — what  means  "  living  ?  " 
what  "  union  ?  "  what  'k  heart  ?  "  They  are  terms  common  to  the 
mystic  and  to  the  popular  religionist,  only  differently  interpreted ; 
and  in  the  meanings  attributed  to  them  lies  nothing  less  than  the 


168  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

whole  world-old  dispute  between  Nominalist  and  Realist ;  not 
yet  to  be  settled  in  two  lines  by  two  gentlemen  over  their  wine, 
much  less  ignored  as  a  thing  settled  beyond  all  dispute  already. 
If  by  "  living  union  of  heart  with  " — Mr.  Vaughan  means  "  iden 
tity  of  morals  with  " — let  him  say  so  :  but  let  him  bear  in  mind 
that  all  the  great  Evangelicals  have  meant  much  more  than  this 
by  those  words ;  that  on  the  whole,  instead  of  considering — as 
he  seems  to  do,  and  we  do — the  moral  and  the  spiritual  as  identi 
cal,  they  have  put  them  in  antithesis  to  each  other,  and  looked 
down  upon  "  mere  morality  "  just  because  it  did  not  seem  to  them 
to  involve  that  supernatural,  transcendental,  "  mystic  "  element 
which  they  considered  that  they  found  in  Scripture.  From 
Luther  to  Owen  and  Baxter,  from  them  to  Wesley,  Cecil,  and 
Venn,  Newton,  Bridges,  the  great  Evangelical  authorities  would 
(not  very  clearly  or  consistently,  for  they  were  but  poor  meta 
physicians,  but  honestly  and  earnestly)  accept  some  modified 
form  of  the  mystic's  theory,  even  to  the  "  discerning  in  particular 
thoughts,  frames,  impulses,  and  inward  witnessings,  immediate 
communications  from  heaven."  Surely  Mr.  Vaughan  must  be 
aware  that  the  majority  of  "  vital  Christians  "  on  this  ground  are 
among  his  mystic  offenders ;  and  that  those  who  deny  such  pos 
sibilities  are  but  too  liable  to  be  stigmatized  as  "  Pelagians  "  and 
"  Rationalists."  His  friend  Atherton  is  bound  to  show  cause 
why  those  names  are  not  to  be  applied  to  him,  as  he  is  bound  to 
show  what  he  means  by  "  living  union  with  Christ,"  and  why  he 
complains  of  the  mystic  for  desiring  "  participation  in  the  Divine 
nature."  If  he  does  so,  he  only  desires  what  the  New  Testa 
ment  formally,  and  word  for  word,  promises  him  :  whatsoever  be 
the  meaning  of  the  term,  he  is  not  to  be  blamed  for  using  it. 
Mr.  Vaughan  cannot  have  forgotten  the  many  expressions,  both 
of  St.  Paul  and  St.  John,  which  do  at  first  sight  go  far  to  justify 
the  mystic,  though  they  are  but  seldom  heard,  and  more  seldom 
boldly  commented  on,  in  modern  pulpits, — of  Christ  being  formed 
in  men,  dwelling  in  men ;  of  God  dwelling  in  man  and  man  in 
God  ;  of  Christ  being  the  life  of  men,  of  men  living,  and  mov 
ing,  and  having  their  being  in  God ;  and  many  another  passage. 
If  these  be  mere  metaphors,  let  the  fact  be  stated,  with  due  rea 
sons  for  it.  But  there  is  no  sin  or  shame  in  interpreting  them 
in  that  literal  and  realist  sense  in  which  they  seem  at  first  sight 
to  have  been  written.  The  first  duty  of  a  scholar  who  sets 
before  himself  to  investigate  the  phenomena  of  "  mysticism,"  so 
called,  should  be  to  answer  these  questions  :  Can  there  be  a 
direct  communication,  above  and  beyond  sense  or  consciousness, 
between  the  human  spirit  and  God  the  Spirit  ?  And  if  so,  what 
are  its  conditions,  where  its  limits,  to  transcend  which  is  to  fall 
into  "  mysticism  ?  " 


HOURS   WITH  THE  MYSTICS.  169 

And  it  is  just  this  which  Mr.  Vaughan  fails  in  doing.  In  his 
sketch,  for  instance,  of  the  mysticism  of  India,  he  gives  us  a  very 
clear  and  (save  in  two  points)  sound  summary  of  that  "  round 
of  notions,  occurring  to  minds  of  similar  make  under  similar 
circumstances,"  which  is  "  common  to  mystics  in  ancient  India 
and  in  modern  Christendom." 

"  Summarily,  I  would  say,  this  Hindoo  mysticism — 

(1.)  Lays  claim  to  disinterested  love  as  opposed  to  a  mercenary 
religion  ; 

(2.)  Reacts  against  the  ceremonial  prescription  and  pedantic  liter 
alism  of  the  Vedas ; 

(3.)  Identifies,  in  its  pantheism,  subject  and  object,  worshipper  and 
worshipped ; 

(4.)  Aims  at  ultimate  absorption  in  the  Infinite  ; 

(5.)  Inculcates,  as  the  way  to  this  dissolution,  absolute  passivity, 
withdrawal  into  the  inmost  self,  cessation  of  all  the  powers, — giving 
recipes  for  procuring  this  beatific  torpor  or  trance ; 

(6.)  Believes  that  eternity  may  thus  be  realized  in  time ; 

(7.)  Has  its  mythical  miraculous  pretensions,  i.  e.,  its  theurgic  de 
partment  ; 

(8.)  And,  finally,  advises  the  learner  in  this  kind  of  religion  to 
submit  himself  implicitly  to  a  spiritual  guide, — his  Guru." 

Against  the  two  latter  articles  we  except.  The  theurgic  de 
partment  of  mysticism — unfortunately  but  too  common — seems  to 
us  always  to  have  been  the  despairing  return  to  that  ceremoni 
alism  which  it  had  begun  by  shaking  off,  when  it  was  disap 
pointed  in  reaching  its  high  aim  by  its  proper  method.  The  use 
of  the  Guru,  or  Father  Confessor,  (which  Mr.  Vaughan  confesses 
to  be  inconsistent  with  mysticism,)  is  to  be  explained  in  the  same 
way ;  he  is  a  last  refuge  after  disappointment. 

But  as  for  the  first  six  counts.  Is  the  Hindoo  mystic  a  worse 
or  a  better  man  for  holding  them  ?  Are  they  on  the  whole  right 
or  wrong  ?  Is  not  disinterested  love  nobler  than  a  mercenary 
religion  ?  Is  it  not  right  to  protest  against  ceremonial  prescrip 
tions,  and  to  say,  whether  with  David  or  with  Aaron,  "  Thinkest 
thou  that  He  will  eat  bull's  flesh,  and  drink  the  blood  of  goats. 
Sacrifice  and  burnt-otfering  thou  wouldst  not.  ...  I  come  to  do 
thy  will,  O  God  ! "  What  is,  even,  if  he  will  look  calmly  into  it, 
the  "  pantheistic  identification  of  subject  and  object,  worshipper 
and  worshipped,"  but  the  clumsy  yet  honest  effort  of  the  human 
mind  to  say  to  itself,  "  Doing  God's  will  is  the  real  end  and  aim 
of  man  ?  "  The  Yogi  looks  round  upon  his  fellow  men,  and 
sees  that  all  their  misery  and  shame  come  from  self-will ;  he 
looks  within,  and  finds  that  all  which  makes  him  miserable, 
angry,  lustful,  greedy  after  this  and  that,  comes  from  the  same 


170  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

self-will.  And  he  asks  himself,  How  shall  I  escape  from  this 
torment  of  self? — how  shall  I  tame  my  wayward  will,  till  it  shall 
become  one  with  the  harmonious,  beautiful,  and  absolute  Will 
which  made  all  things  ?  At  least,  I  will  try  to  do  it,  whatever 
it  shall  cost  me.  I  will  give  up  all  for  which  rnen  live — wife 
and  child,  the  sights,  scents,  sounds  of  this  fair  earth,  all  things, 
whatever  they  be,  which  men  call  enjoyment,  I  will  make  this 
life  one  long  torture,  if  need  be,  but  this  rebel  will  of  mine  I  will 
conquer.  I  ask  for  no  reward.  That  may  come  in  some  future 
life.  But  what  care  I.  I  am  now  miserable  by  reason  of  the 
lusts  which  war  in  my  members  ;  the  peace  which  I  shall  gain 
in  being  freed  from  them  will  be  its  own  reward.  After  all  I 
give  up  little.  All  these  things  round  me — the  primaeval  forest, 
and  the  sacred  stream  of  Ganga,  the  mighty  Himalaya,  mount 
of  God,  ay,  the  illimitable  vault  of  heaven  above  me,  sun  and 
stars — what  are  they  but  "  such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of  ?  " 
Brahm  thought,  and  they  became  something  and  somewhere. 
He  may  think  again,  and  they  will  become  nothing  and  nowhere. 
Are  these  eternal,  greater  than  I,  worth  troubling  my  mind 
about  ?  Nothing  is  eternal,  but  the  Thought  which  made  them, 
and  will  unmake  them.  They  are  only  venerable  in  my  eyes, 
because  each  of  them  is  a  thought  of  Brahm's.  And  I,  too, 
have  thought ;  I  alone  of  all  the  kinds  of  living  things.  Am  I 
not,  then,  akin  to  God  ?  what  better  for  me  than  to  sit  down  and 
think,  as  Brahm  thinks,  and  so  enjoy  my  eternal  heritage,  leav 
ing  for  those  who  cannot  think,  the  passions  and  pleasures  which 
they  share  in  common  with  the  beasts  of  the  field  ?  So  I  shall 
become  more  and  more  like  Brahm;  will  his  will,  think  his 
thoughts,  till  I  lose  utterly  this  house-fiend  of  self,  and  become 
one  with  God  ? 

Is  this  a  man  to  be  despised  ?  Is  he  a  sickly  dreamer,  or  a 
too  valiant  hero  ?  and  if  any  gne  be  shocked  at  this  last  utter 
ance,  let  him  consider  carefully  the  words  which  he  may  hear 
on  Sunday ;  "  Then  we  dwell  in  Christ,  and  Christ  in  us ;  we 
are  one  with  Christ,  and  Christ  with  us."  That  belief  is  surely 
not  a  false  one.  Shall  we  abhor  the  Yogi  because  he  has  seen, 
sitting  alone  there  amid  idolatry  and  licentiousness,  despotism 
and  priestcraft,  that  the  ideal  goal  of  man  is  what  we  confess  it 
to  be  in  the  communion  service  ?  Shall  we  not  rather  wonder 
and  rejoice  over  the  magnificent  utterances  in  that  Bagvat-Gita 
which  Mr.  Vaughan  takes — as  we  do — for  the  text-book  of 
Hindoo  mysticism,  which  proceed  from  the  mouth  of  Crishna, 
the  teacher  human,  and  yet  God  himself. 

"  There  is  nothing  greater  than  I ;  all  things  hang  on  me,  as  precious 


HOURS   WITH   THE   MYSTICS.  171 

gems  upon  a  string I  am  life  in  all  things,  and  zeal  in  the  zealous. 

I  am  the  eternal  seed  of  nature  :  I  am  the  understanding  of  the  wise,  the 
glory  of  the  proud,  the  strength  of  the  strong,  free  from  lust  and  anger. 
....  Those  who  trust  in  me  know  Brahm,  the  supreme  and  incorruptible. 
....  In  this  body  I  am  the  teacher  of  worship.  He  who  thinks  of  me  will 

find  me.  He  who  finds  me  returns  not  again  to  mortal  birth I  am 

the  sacrifice,  I  am  the  worship,  I  am  the  incense,  I  am  the  fire,  I  am 
the  victim,  I  am  the  father  and  mother  of  the  world  ;  I  am  the  road 
of  the  good,  the  comforter,  the  creator,  the  witness,  the  asylum,  and 
the  friend.  They  who  serve  other  gods  with  a  firm  belief,  involuntarily 
worship  me.  I  am  the  same  to  all  mankind.  They  who  serve  me  in 
adoration  are  in  me.  If  one  whose  ways  are  ever  so  evil  serve  me 
alone,  he  becometh  of  a  virtuous  spirit  and  obtaineth  eternal  happi 
ness.  Even  women,  and  the  tribes  of  Visga  and  Soodra,  shall  go  the 
supreme  journey,  if  they  take  sanctuary  with  me  ;  how  much  more  my 
holy  servants  the  Brahmins  and  the  Ragarshees !  Consider  this  world 
as  a  finite  and  joyless  place,  and  serve  me." 

There  may  be  confused  words  scattered  up  and  down  here  ; 
there  are  still  more  confused  words — not  immoral  ones — round 
them,  which  we  have  omitted ;  but  we  ask,  once  and  for  all,  is 
this  true,  or  is  it  not  ?  Is  there  a  being  who  answers  to  this 
description,  or  is  there  not  ?  And  if  there  be,  was  it  not  a  light 
price  to  pay  for  the  discovery  of  him  "  to  sit  upon  the  sacred 
grass  called  koos,  with  his  mind  fixed  on  one  object  alone ;  keep 
ing  his  head,  neck,  and  body  steady,  without  motion  ;  his  eyes 
fixed  upon  the  point  of  his  nose,  looking  at  no  other  place  around  " 
— or  any  other  simple,  even  childish,  practical  means  of  getting 
rid  of  the  disturbing  bustle  and  noise  of  the  outward,  time-world, 
that  he  might  see  the  eternal  world  which  underlies  it  ?  What 
if  the  discovery  be  imperfect,  the  figure  in  my  features  errone 
ous  ?  Is  not  the  wonder  to  us,  the  honour  to  him,  that  the  figure 
should  be  there  at  all  ?  Inexplicable  to  us  on  any  ground,  save 
that  one  common  to  the  Bagvat-Gita,  to  the  gospel.  "  He  who 
seeks  me  shall  find  me."  What  if  he  knew  but  in  part,  and  saw 
through  a  glass  darkly  ?  Was  there  not  One  greater  than  he 
who,  in  the  full  light  of  inspiration,  could  but  say  the  very  same 
thing  of  himself,  and  look  forward  to  a  future  life  in  which  he 
would  "  know  even  as  he  was  known  ?  " 

It  is  well  worth  observing,  too,  that  so  far  from  the  moral  of 
this  Bagvat-Gita  issuing  in  mere  contemplative  Quietism,  its 
purpose  is  essentially  practical.  It  arises  out  of  Arjoun's  doubt 
whether  he  shall  join  in  the  battle  which  he  sees  raging  below 
him  ;  it  results  in  his  being  commanded  to  join  in  it,  and  fight  like 
a  man.  We  cannot  see,  as  Mr.  Vaughan  does,  an  "  unholy  in 
difference  "  in  the  moral.  Arjoun  shrinks  from  fighting  because 
friends  and  relatives  are  engaged  on  both  sides,  and  he  dreads 


172  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

hell  if  he  kills  one  of  them.  The  answer  to  his  doubt  is,  after 
all,  the  only  one  which  makes  war  permissible  to  a  Christian, 
who  looks  on  all  men  as  his  brothers  : — 

"You  are  a  Ksahtree,  a  soldier;  your  duty  is  to  fight.  Do 
your  duty,  and  leave  the  consequences  of  it  to  Him  who  com 
manded  the  duty.  You  cannot  kill  these  men's  souls  any  more 
than  they  can  yours.  You  can  only  kill  their  mortal  bodies;  the 
fate  of  their  souls  and  yours  depends  on  their  moral  state.  Kill 
their  bodies,  then,  if  it  be  your  duty,  instead  of  tormenting  your 
self  with  scruples,  which  are  not  really  scruples  of  conscience, 
only  selfish  fears  of  harm  to  yourself,  and  leave  their  souls  to 
the  care  of  Him  who  made  them,  and  knows  them,  and  cares 
more  for  them  than  you  do." 

This  seems  to  be  the  plain  outcome  of  the  teaching.  What  is 
it,  mutatis  mutandis,  but  the  sermon,  u  cold-blooded "  or  not, 
which  every  righteous  soldier  in  the  Crimea  has  had  to  preach 
to  himself,  day  by  day,  for  the  last  two  years  ? 

Yet  the  fact  is  undeniable  that  Hindoo  mysticism  has  failed  of 
practical  result — that  it  lias  died  down  into  brutal  fakeerism.  We 
look  in  vain,  however,  in  Mr.  Vaughan's  chapter  for  an  explana 
tion  of  this  fact,  save  his  assertion,  which  we  deny,  that  Hindoo 
mysticism  was  an  essence  and  at  its  root  wrong  and  rotten.  Mr. 
Maurice  (Moral  and  Metaphysical  Philosophy,  p.  46)  seems  to 
point  to  a  more  charitable  solution.  "  The  Hindoo  "  (he  says) 
"  whatsoever  vast  discovery  he  may  have  made  at  an  early  period 
of  a  mysterious  Teacher  near  him,  working  on  his  spirit,  who  is 
at  the  same  time  Lord  over  nature,  began  the  search  from  him 
self — he  had  no  other  point  from  whence  to  begin — and  there 
fore  it  ended  in  himself.  The  purification  of  his  individual  soul 
became  practically  his  highest  conceivable  end  ;  to  carry  out  that 
he  must  separate  from  society.  Y"et  the  more  he  tries  to  escape 
self  the  more  he  linds  self;  for  what  are  his  thoughts  about 
Brain,  his  thoughts  about  Krishna,  save  his  own  thoughts  ?  Is 
Brahm  a  projection  of  his  own  soul  ?  To  sink  in  him,  does  it 
mean  to  be  nothing?  Am  I,  after  all,  my  own  law  ?  And  hence 
the  downward  career  into  stupid  inditferentism,  even  into  Aiiti- 
nomian  profligacy." 

The  Hebrew,  on  the  other  hand,  begins  from  the  belief  of  an 
objective  external  God,  but  one  who  cares  for  more  than  his  in 
dividual  soul;  as  one  who  is  the  ever-present  guide,  and  teacher, 
and  ruler  of  his  whole  nation  ;  who  regards  that  nation  as  a 
whole,  a  one  person,  and  that  not  merely  one  present  generation, 
but  all,  past  or  future,  as  a  one  •*  Israel;"  law-givers,  prophets, 
priests,  warriors.  All  classes  are  his  ministers.  He  is  essen 
tially  a  political  deity,  who  cares  infinitely  for  the  polity  of  a 


HOURS  WITH  THE  MYSTICS.  173 

nation,  and  therefore  bestows  one  upon  them — "a  law  of  Jeho 
vah."  Gradually,  under  this  teaching,  the  Hebrew  rises  to  the 
very  idea  of  an  inward  teacher,  which  the  Yogi  had,  and  to  a 
far  purer  and  clearer  form  of  that  idea ;  but  he  is  not  tempted 
by  it  to  selfish  individualism,  or  contemplative  isolation,  as  long 
as  he  is  true  to  the  old  Mosaic  belief,  that  this  being  is  the  Po 
litical  Deity,  "  the  King  of  kings."  The  Pharisee  becomes  a 
selfish  individualist  just  because  he  has  forgotten  this ;  the 
Essene,  a  selfish  "  mystic  "  for  the  same  reason  ;  Philo  and  the 
Jewish  mystics  of  Alexandria  lose  in  like  manner  all  notion  that 
Jehovah  is  the  lawgiver,  and  ruler,  and  archetype  of  family  and 
of  national  life.  The  early  Christians  retain  the  idea ;  they 
bring  out  the  meaning  of  the  old  Jewish  polity  in  its  highest 
form  ?  for  that  very  reason  they  are  able  to  bring  out  the  mean 
ing  of  the  "  mystic  "  idea  in  its  highest  form  also,  without  injury 
to  their  work  as  members  of  families,  as  citizens,  as  practical 
men  of  the  world. 

And  here  let  us  say  boldly  to  Mr.  Vaughan  and  to  our  readers 
— As  long  as  "  the  salvation  of  a  man's  own  soul  "  is  set  forth  in 
all  pulpits  as  the  first  and  last  end  and  aim  of  mortal  existence  ; 
as  long  as  Christianity  is  dwelt  on  merely  as  influencing  individ 
uals  each  apart — as  "  brands  plucked,  one  here  and  another 
there,  from  the  general  burning," — so  long  will  mysticism,  in  its 
highest  form,  be  the  refuge  of  the  strongest  spirits,  and  its  more 
base  and  diseased  forms  the  refuge  of  the  weak  and  sentimental 
spirits.  They  will  say,  each  in  his  own  way — "  You  confess  that 
there  can  be  a  direct  relation,  communion,  inspiration,  from  God 
to  my  soul,  as  I  sit  alone  in  my  chamber.  You  do  not  think 
that  there  is  such  between  God  and  what  you  call  the  world  ; 
between  Him  and  nations  as  wholes, — families,  churches,  schools 
of  thought,  as  wholes  ;  that  He  does  not  take  a  special  interest, 
or  exercise  a  special  influence,  over  the  ways  and  works  of  men 
— over  science,  commerce,  civilization,  colonization,  all  which 
affects  the  earthly  destinies  of  the  race.  All  these  you  call  secu 
lar  ;  to  admit  his  influence  over  them  for  their  own  sake  (though 
of  course  He  overrules  them  for  the  sake  of  his  elect)  savours  of 
Pantheism.  Is  it  so  ?  Then  we  will  give  up  the  world.  We 
will  cling  to  the  one  fact  which  you  confess  to  be  certain  about 
us,  that  we  can  take  refuge  in  God,  each  in  the  loneliness  of  his 
chamber,  from  all  the  vain  turmoil  of  a  race  which  is  hastening 
heedless  into  endless  misery.  You  may  call  us  mystics,  or  what 
you  will.  We  will  possess  our  souls  in  patience,  and  turn  away 
our  eyes  from  vanity.  We  will  commune  with  our  own  hearts 
in  solitude,  and  be  still.  We  will  not  even  mingle  in  your  reli 
gious  world,  the  world  which  you  have  invented  for  yourselves, 


174  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

after  denying  that  God's  human  world  is  sacred  ;  for  it  seems  to 
us  as  full  of  intrigue,  ambition,  party-spirit,  falsehood,  bitterness, 
and  ignorance,  as  the  political  world,  or  the  fashionable  world, 
or  the  scientific  world  ;  and  we  will  have  none  of  it.  Leave  us 
alone  with  God." 

This  has  been  the  true  reason  of  mystical  isolation  in  every 
age  and  country.  So  thought  Macarius  and  the  Christian  fakeers 
of  the  Thebaid.  So  thought  the  mediaeval  monks  and  nuns.  So 
thought  the  German  Quietists  when  they  revolted  from  the  fierce 
degradation  of  decaying  Lutheranism.  So  are  hundreds  thinking 
now  ;  so  may  thousands  think  ere  long.  If  the  individualizing 
phase  of  Christianity  which  is  now  dominant  shall  long  retain  its 
ascendency,  and  the  creed  of  Dr.  Cumming  and  Mr.  Spurgepn 
become  that  of  the  British  people,  our  purest  and  noblest  spirits 
will  act  here,  with  regard  to  religion,  as  the  purest  and  noblest 
in  America  have  acted  with  regard  to  politics.  They  will  with 
draw  each  into  the  sanctuary  of  his  own  heart,  and  leave  the 
battle-field  to  rival  demagogues.  They  will  do  wrong,  it  may 
be.  Isolation  involves  laziness,  pride,  cowardice  ;  but  if  sober 
England,  during  the  next  half-century,  should  be  astonished  by 
an  outburst  of  mysticism,  as  grand  in  some  respects,  as  fantastic 
in  others,  as  that  of  the  thirteenth  or  the  seventeenth  centuries,  the 
blame,  if  blame  there  be,  will  lie  with  those  leaders  of  the  public 
conscience  who,  after  having  debased  alike  the  Church  of  Eng 
land  and  the  dissenting  sects  with  a  selfish  individualism  which 
was  as  foreign  to  the  old  Cromwellite  Ironside  as  to  the  High 
Church  divine,  have  tried  to  debar  their  disciples  from  that 
peaceful  and  graceful  mysticism  which  is  the  only  excusable  or 
tolerable  form  of  a  religion  beginning  and  ending  in  self. 

Let  it  be  always  borne  in  mind,  that  Quakerism  was  not  a 
protest  against,  or  a  revulsion  from,  the  Church  of  England,  but 
from  Calvinism.  The  steeple-houses,  against  which  George  Fox 
testified,  were  not  served  by  Henry  Mores,  Cudworths,  or  Nor- 
rises  :  not  even  by  dogmatist  High-Churchmen,  but  by  Calvinist 
ministers,  who  had  ejected  them.  George  Fox  developed  his 
own  scheme,  such  as  it  was,  because  the  popular  Protestantism 
of  his  day  failed  to  meet  the  deepest  wants  of  his  heart ;  because, 
as  he  used  to  say,  it  gave  him  "  a  dead  Christ,"  and  he  required 
a  "  living  Christ."  Doctrines  about  who  Christ  is,  he  held,  are 
not  Christ  himself.  Doctrines  about  what  he  has  done  for  man, 
are  not  He  himself.  Fox  held,  that  if  Christ  be  a  living  person, 
He  must  act  (when  he  acted)  directly  on  the  most  inward  and 
central  personality  of  him,  George  Fox;  and  his  desire  was 
satisfied  by  the  discovery  of  the  indwelling  Logos,  or  rather  by 
its  rediscovery,  after  it  had  fallen  into  oblivion  for  centuries. 


HOURS   WITH  THE   MYSTICS.  !75 

Whether  he  were  right  or  wrong,  he  is  a  fresh  instance  of  a 
man's  arriving,  alone  and  unassisted,  at  the  same  idea  at  which 
mystics  of  all  ages  and  countries  have  arrived  ;  a  fresh  corrobora- 
tion  of  our  belief,  that  there  must  be  some  reality  corresponding 
to  a  notion  which  has  manifested  itself  so  variously,  and  among 
so  many  thousands  of  every  creed,  and  has  yet  arrived,  by  what 
soever  different  paths,  at  one  and  the  same  result. 

That  he  was  more  or  less  right — that  there  is  nothing  in  the 
essence  of  mysticism  contrary  to  practical  morality,  Mr.  Vaughan 
himself  fully  confesses.  In  his  fair  and  liberal  chapters  on  Fox 
and  the  Early  Quakers,  he  does  full  justice  to  their  intense  prac 
tical  benevolence  ;  to  the  important  fact  that  Fox  only  lived  to 
do  good,  of  any  and  every  kind,  as  often  as  a  sorrow  to  be  soothed, 
or  an  evil  to  be  remedied,  crossed  his  path.  We  only  wish  that 
he  had  also  brought  in  the  curious  and  affecting  account  of  Fox's 
interview  with  Cromwell,  in  which  he  tells  us  (and  we  will  take 
Fox's  word  against  any  man)  that  the  Protector  gave  him 
to  understand,  almost  with  tears,  that  there  was  that  in  Fox's 
faith  which  he  was  seeking  in  vain  from  the  "  ministers  "  around 
him. 

All  we  ask  of  Mr.  Vaughan  is,  not  to  be  afraid  of  his  own  evi 
dent  liking  for  Fox ;  of  his  own  evident  liking  for  Tauler  and 
his  school ;  not  to  put  aside  the  question  which  their  doctrines 
involve,  with  such  half-utterances  as — 

"  The  Quakers  are  wrono;,  I  think,  in  separating  particular  move 
ments  and  monitions  as  Divine.  But,  at  the  same  time,  the  '  witness 
of  the  Spirit,'  as  regards  our  state  before  God,  is  something  more,  I 
believe,  than  the  mere  attestation  to  the  written  word." 

As  for  the  former  of  these  two  sentences,  he  may  be  quite 
right,  for  aught  we  know.  But  it  must  be  said,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  not  merely  Quakers,  but  decent  men  of  every  creed 
and  age,  have — we  may  dare  to  say,  in  proportion  to  their  de- 
voutness — believed  in  such  monitions  ;  and  that  it  is  hard  to  see 
how  any  man  could  have  arrived  at  the  belief  that  a  living  person 
was  working  on  him,  and  not  a  mere  unpersonal  principle,  law, 
or  afflatus — (spirit  of  the  universe,  or  other  metaphor  for  hiding 
materialism) — unless  by  believing  rightly  or  wrongly,  in  such 
monitions.  For  our  only  inductive  conception  of  a  living  person 
demands  that  that  person  shall  make  himself  felt  by  separate 
acts. 

But  against  the  second  sentence  we  must  protest.  The  ques 
tion  in  hand  is  not  whether  this  "  witness  of  the  Spirit "  is  "  some 
thing  more  "  %  than  anything  else.  But  whether  it  exists  at  all, 


176  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

and  what  it  is.  Why  was  the  book  written,  save  to  help  toward 
the  solution  of  this  very  matter  ?  The  question  all  through  has 
been — Can  an  immediate  influence  be  exercised  by  the  Spirit  of 
God  on  the  spirit  of  man  ?  Mr.  Vaughan  assents,  and  says  (we 
cannot  see  why)  that  there  is  no  mysticism  in  such  a  belief.  Be 
that  as  it  may,  what  that  influence  is,  and  how  exercised,  is  all 
through  the  de  quo  agitur  of  mysticism.  Mr.  Vaughan,  how 
ever,  seems  here  for  awhile  to  be  talking  realism  through  an  ad 
mirable  page,  well  worth  perusal  (pp.  264-5).  Yet  his.  grasp 
is  not  sure.  We  soon  find  him  saying  what  More  and  Fox  would 
alike  deny,  that  "  The  story  of  Christ's  life  and  death  is  our  soul's 
food."  No ;  Christ  himself  is, — would  the  English  Church  and 
the  mystic  alike  answer.  And  here  again,  the  whole  matter  in 
dispute  is  (unconsciously  to  Mr.  Vaughan)  opened  up  in  one 
word.  And  if  this  sentence  does  not  bear  directly  on  that 
problem,  on  what  does  it  bear?  It  was  therefore  with  extreme 
disappointment  that  on  reading  this,  and  saying  to  ourselves, 
"  Now  we  shall  hear  at  last  what  Mr.  Vaughan  himself  thinks 
on  the  matter,"  we  found  that  he  literally  turned  the  subject  off, 
as  if  not  worth  investigation,  by  making  the  next  speaker  ans 
wer,  a  propos  of  nothing,  that  "  the  traditional  asceticism  of  the 
Friends  is  their  fatal  defect  as  a  body." 

Why,  too,  has  Mr.  Vaughan  devoted  a  few  lines  only  to  the 
great  English  Platonists,  More,  Norris,  Smith  of  Jesus,  Gale, 
and  Cudworth  ?  He  says,  indeed,  that  they  are  scarcely  mystics, 
except  in  as  far  as  Platonism  is  always  in  a  measure  mystical. 
In  our  sense  of  the  word,  they  were  all  of  them  mystics,  and  of 
a  rery  lofty  type  ;  but  surely  Henry  More  is  a  mystic  in  Mr. 
Vaughan's  sense  also.  If  the  author  of  Conjectura  Cabbalistica 
be  not  a  mystical  writer  (he  himself  uses  the  term  without  shame), 
who  is  ? 

We  hope  to  see  much  in  this  book  condensed,  much  modified, 
much  worked  out,  instead  of  being  left  fragmentary  and  embry- 
otic  ;  but  whether  our  hope  be  fulfilled  or  not,  a  useful  and 
honourable  future  is  before  the  man  who  could  write  such  a  book 
as  this  is,  in  spite  of  all  defects. 


TENNYSON.  177 


TENNYSON. 

[Eraser's  Magazine.} 

CRITICS  cannot  in  general  be  too  punctilious  in  their  respect 
for  an  incognito.  If  an  author  intended  us  to  know  his  name,  he 
would  put  it  on  his  title-page.  If  he  does  not  choose  to  do  that, 
we  have  no  more  right  to  pry  into  his  secret  than  we  have  to 
discuss  his  family  affairs  or  open  his  letters.  But  every  rule  has 
its  exceptional  cases  ;  and  the  book  which  stands  first  upon  our 
list  is  surely  such.  All  the  world,  somehow  or  other,  knows  the 
author.  His  name  has  been  mentioned  unhesitatingly  by  several 
reviews  already,  whether  from  private  information,  or  from  the 
certainty  which  every  well-read  person  must  feel,  that  there  is 
but  one  man  in  England  possessed  at  once  of  poetic  talent  and 
artistic  experience  sufficient  for  so  noble  a  creation.  We  hope, 
therefore,  that  we  shall  not  be  considered  impertinent  if  we  ignore 
an  incognito  which  all  England  has  ignored  before  us,  and  attrib 
ute  In  Memoriam  to  the  pen  of  the  author  of  The  Princess. 

Such  a  course  will  probably  be  the  more  useful  one  to  our 
readers  ;  for  this  last  work  of  our  only  living  great  poet  seems  to 
us  at  once  the  culmination  of  all  his  efforts  and  the  key  to  many 
difficulties  in  his  former  writings.  Heaven  forbid  that  we  should 
say  that  it  completes  the  circle  of  his  powers.  On  the  contrary, 
it  gives  us  hope  of  vaster  effort  in  new  fields  of  thought  and  forms 
of  art.  But  it  brings  the  development  of  his  Muse  and  of  his 
Creed  to  a  positive  and  definite  point.  It  enables  us  to  claim 
one  who  has  been  hitherto  regarded  as  belonging  to  a  merely 
speculative  and  peirastic  school  as  the  willing  and  deliberate 
champion  of  vital  Christianity,  and  of  an  orthodoxy  the  more  sin 
cere  because  it  has  worked  upward  through  the  abyss  of  doubt ; 
the  more  mighty  for  good  because  it  justifies  and  consecrates  the 
aesthetics  and  the  philosophy  of  the  present  age.  We  are  sure, 
moreover,  that  the  author,  whatever  right  reasons  he  may  have 
had  for  concealing  his  own  name,  would  have  no  quarrel  against 

1.  In  Memoriam.     2.    The  Princess,  a  Medley.     3.  Poems. 

8* 


178  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

us  for  alluding  to  it,  were  he  aware  of  the  absolute  idolatry  with 
which  every  utterance  of  his  is  regarded  by  the  cultivated  young 
men  of  our  day,  especially  at  the  universities,  and  of  the  infinite 
service  of  which  this  In  Memoriam  may  be  to  them,  if  they  are 
taught  by  it  that  their  superiors  are  not  ashamed  of  Faith,  and 
that  they  will  rise  instead  of  falling,  fulfil  instead  of  denying  the 
cravings  of  their  hearts  and  intellects,  if  they  will  pass  upwards 
with  their  teacher  from  the  vague  though  noble  expectations  of 
Locksley  Hall,  to  the  assured  and  everlasting  facts  of  the  proem 
to  In  Memoriam, — in  our  eyes,  the  noblest  Christian  poem  which 
England  has  produced  for  two  centuries. 

To  explain  our  meaning,  it  will  be  necessary,  perhaps,  to  go 
back  to  Mr.  Tennyson's  earlier  writings,  of  which  he  is  said  to 
be  somewhat  ashamed  now, — a  fastidiousness  with  which  we  will 
not  quarrel ;  for  it  should  be  the  rule  of  the  poet  as  well  as  of  the 
apostle,  "  forgetting  those  things  which  are  behind,  to  press  on  to 
those  things  which  are  before,"  and  "  to  count  not  himself  to  have 

apprehended,  but " no,  we  will  not  finish  the  quotation  :  let 

the  readers  of  In  Memoriam  finish  it  for  themselves,  and  see  how 
after  all  the  poet,  if  he  would  reach  perfection,  must  be  found  by 
Him  who  found  St.  Paul  of  old.  In  the  mean  time,  as  the  poet 
must  necessarily  be  in  advance  of  his  age,  Mr.  Tennyson's  earlier 
poems,  rather  than  these  latter  ones,  coincide  with  the  tastes  and 
speculations  of  the  young  men  of  this  day.  And  in  proportion, 
we  believe,  as  they  thoroughly  appreciate  the  distinctive  pecu 
liarities  of  those  poems,  will  they  be  able  to  follow  the  author  of 
them  on  his  upward  path. 

Some  of  our  readers,  we  would  fain  hope,  remember  as  an 
era  in  their  lives  the  first  day  on  which  they  read  those  earlier 
poems  ;  how,  fifteen  years  ago,  Mariana  in  the  Moated  Grange, 
The  Dying  Swan,  The  Lady  of  Shalott,  came  to  them  as  revelations. 
They  seemed  to  themselves  to  have  found  at  last  a  poet  who 
promised  not  only  to  combine  the  cunning  melody  of  Moore,  the 
rich  fulness  of  Keats,  and  the  simplicity  of  Wordsworth,  but  one 
who  was  introducing  a  method  of  observing  Nature  different  from 
that  of  all  the  three,  and  yet  succeeding  in  everything  which  they 
had  attempted,  often  in  vain.  Both  Keats  and  Moore  had  an 
eye  for  the  beauty  which  lay  in  trivial  and  daily  objects.  But  in 
both  of  them  there  was  a  want  of  deep  religious  reverence,  which 
kept  Moore  playing  gracefully  upon  the  surface  of  phenomena 
without  ever  daring  to  dive  into  their  laws  or  inner  meaning; 
and  made  poor  Keats  fancy  that  he  was  rather  to  render  Nature 
poetical  by  bespangling  her  with  florid  ornament,  than  simply  to 
confess  that  she  was  already,  by  the  grace  of  God,  far  beyond 
the  need  of  his  paint  and  gilding.  Even  Wordsworth  himself 


TENNYSON.  179 

had  not  full  faith  in  the  great  dicta  which  he  laid  down  in  his 
famous  Introductory  Essay.  Deep  as  was  his  conviction  that 
Nature  bore  upon  her  simplest  forms  the  finger-mark  of  God,  he 
did  not  always  dare  simply  to  describe  her  as  she  was,  and  leave 
her  to  reveal  her  own  mystery.  We  do  not  say  this  in  deprecia 
tion  of  one  who  stands  now  far  above  human  praise  or  blame,  to 
receive  the  meed  of  a  life  of  love  to  God  and  man.  The  wonder 
is,  not  that  Wordsworth  rose  no  higher,  but  that,  considering  the 
level  on  which  his  taste  was  formed,  he  had  power  to  rise  to  the 
height  above  his  age  which  he  did  attain.  He  did  a  mighty 
work.  He  has  left  the  marks  of  his  teaching  upon  every  poet 
who  has  written  verses  worth  reading  for  the  last  twenty  years. 
The  idea  by  which  he  conquered  was,  as  Coleridge  well  sets 
forth,  the  very  one  which,  in  its  practical  results  on  his  own  poe 
try,  procured  him  loud  and  deserved  ridicule.  This,  which  will 
be  the  root  idea  of  the  whole  poetry  of  this  generation,  was  the 
dignity  of  Nature  in  all  her  manifestations,  and  not  merely  in 
those  which  may  happen  to  suit  the  fastidiousness  or  Manichee- 
ism  of  any  particular  age.  He  may  have  been  at  times  fanatical 
on  his  idea,  and  have  misused  it,  till  it  became  self-contradictory, 
because  he  could  not  see  the  correlative  truths  which  should  have 
limited  it.  But  it  is  by  fanatics,  by  men  of  one  great  thought, 
that  great  works  are  done ;  and  it  is  good  for  the  time  that  a  man 
arose  in  it  of  fearless  honesty  enough  to  write  Peter  Bells  and 
Idiot  Boys,  to  shake  all  the  old  methods  of  nature-painting  to 
their  roots,  and  set  every  man  seriously  to  ask  himself  what  he 
meant,  or  whether  he  meant  any  thing  real,  reverent,  or  honest, 
when  he  talked  about  "  poetic  diction,"  or  "  the  beauties  of 
Nature.  And  after  all,  like  all  fanatics,  Wordsworth  was  better 
than  his  own  creed.  As  Coleridge  thoroughly  shows  in  the 
second  volume  of  the  Biographia  Litteraria,  and  as  may  be  seen 
nowhere  more  strikingly  than  in  his  grand  posthumous  work,  his 
noblest  poems  and  noblest  stanzas  are  those  in  which  his  true 
poetic  genius,  unconsciously  to  himself,  sets  at  nought  his  own 
pseudo-naturalist  dogmas. 

Now,  Mr.  Tennyson,  while  fully  adopting  Wordsworth's  prin 
ciple  from  the  very  first,  seemed  by  instinctive  taste  to  have 
escaped  the  snares  which  had  proved  too  subtle  both  for  Keats 
and  Wordsworth.  Doubtless  there  are  slight  niaiseries,  after  the 
manner  of  both  those  poets,  in  the  first  editions  of  his  earlier 
poems.  He  seems,  like  most  other  great  artists,  to  have  first 
tried  imitations  of  various  styles  which  already  existed,  before  he 
learnt  the  art  of  incorporating  them  into  his  own,  and  learning 
from  all  his  predecessors,  without  losing  his  own  individual  pecu 
liarities.  But  there  are  descriptive  passages  in  them  also  which 


180  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANYS. 

neither  Keats  nor  "Wordsworth  could  have  written,  combining  the 
honest  sensuous  observation  which  is  common  to  them  both,  with 
a  self-restrained  simplicity  which  Keats  did  not  live  long  enough 
to  attain,  and  a  stately  and  accurate  melody,  and  earnest  songful- 
ness  (to  coin  a  word)  which  Wordsworth  seldom  attained,  and 
from  his  inaccurate  and  uncertain  ear,  still  seldomer  preserved 
without  the  occurrence  of  a  jar  or  a  rattle,  a  false  quantity,  a  false 
rapture,  or  a  bathos.  And  above  all,  or  rather  beneath  all — for 
we  suspect  that  this  has  been  throughout  the  very  secret  of  Mr. 
Tennyson's  power — there  was  a  hushed  and  a  reverent  awe,  a 
sense  of  the  mystery,  the  infinitude,  the  awfulness,  as  well  as  of 
the  mere  beauty  of  wayside  things,  which  invested  these  poems 
as  wholes  with  a  peculiar  richness,  depth,  and  majesty  of  tone, 
beside  which  both  Keats's  and  Wordsworth's  methods  of  hand 
ling  pastoral  subjects  looked  like  the  colouring  of  Julio  Romano 
or  Watteau,  by  the  side  of  Correggio  or  Titian. 

This  deep,  simple  faith  in  the  divineness  of  Nature  as  she  ap 
pears,  which,  in  our  eyes,  is  Mr.  Tennyson's  differentia,  is  really 
the  natural  accompaniment  of  a  quality  at  first  sight  its  very  oppo 
site,  and  for  which  he  is  often  blamed  by  a  prosaic  world  ;  namely, 
his  subjective  and  transcendental  mysticism.  It  is  the  mystic, 
after  all,  who  will  describe  Nature  most  simply,  because  he  sees 
most  in  her ;  because  he  is  most  ready  to  believe  that  she  will 
reveal  to  others  the  same  message  which  she  has  revealed  to 
him.  Men  like  Boehmen,  Novalis,  and  Fourier,  who  can  soar 
into  the  inner  cloud-world  of  man's  spirit,  even  though  they  lose 
their  way  there,  dazzled  by  excess  of  wonder, — men  who,  like 
Wordsworth,  can  give  utterance  to  such  subtle  anthropologic 
wisdom  as  the  Ode  to  the  Imitations  of  Immortality,  will  for  that 
very  reason  most  humbly  and  patiently  "consider  the  lilies  of  the 
field,  how  they  grow."  And  even  so  it  is  just  because  Mr.  Tenny 
son  is,  far  more  than  Wordsworth,  mystical,  and  what  an  ignorant 
and  money-getting  generation,  idolatrous  of  mere  sensuous  activ 
ity,  calls  "  dreamy,"  that  he  has  become  the  greatest  naturalistic 
poet  which  England  has  seen  for  several  centuries  :  the  same 
faculty  which  enabled  him  to  draw  such  subtle  subjective  pictures 
of  womanhood  as  Adeline,  Isabel,  and  Eleanor,  enabled  him  to 
see,  and  therefore  simply  to  describe,  in  one  of  the  most  distinc 
tive  and  successful  of  his  earlier  poems,  how 

The  creeping  mosses  and  clambering  weeds, 

And  the  willow  branches  hoar  and  dank, 
And  the  wavy  swell  of  the  soughing  reeds, 

And  the  wave-worn  horns  of  the  echoing  bank, 
And  the  silvery  marish-flowers  that  throng 
The  desolate  creeks  and  pools  among, 
Were  flooded  over  with  eddying  song. 


TENNYSON.  181 

No  doubt  there  are  in  the  earlier  poems  exceptions  to  this 
style, — attempts  to  adorn  Nature,  and  dazzle  with  a  barbaric 
splendour  akin  to  that  of  Keats, — as,  for  instance,  in  the  Recol 
lections  of  the  Arabian  Nights.  But  how  cold  and  gaudy,  in 
spite  of  individual  beauties,  is  that  poem  by  the  side  of  either  of 
the  Marianas,  and  especially  of  that  one  in  which  the  scenery  is 
drawn,  simply  and  faithfully,  from  those  counties  which  the 
world  considers  the  quintescence  of  the  prosaic — the  English 
fens. 

Upon  the  middle  of  the  night 

Waking  she  heard  the  night-fowl  crow; 
The  cock  sung  out  an  hour  ere  light: 
From  the  dark  fen  the  oxen's  low 
Came  to  her:  without  hope  of  change, 
In  sleep  she  seem'd  to  walk  forlorn, 
Till  cold  winds  woke  the  gray-eyed  morn 
About  the  lonely  moated  grange. 

***** 
About  a  stone-cast  from  the  wall 

A  sluice  with  blacken'd  waters  slept, 
And  o'er  it  many,  round  and  small, 

The  cluster'd  marish-mosses  crept. 
Hard  by  a  poplar  shook  alway, 
All  silver-green  with  gnarled  bark, 
For  leagues  no  other  tree  did  dark 
The  level  waste,  the  rounding  gray. 
***** 

Throughout  all  these  exquisite  lines  occurs  but  one  instance  of 
what  the  vulgar  call  "  poetic  diction."  All  is  simple  description, 
in  short  and  Saxon  words,  and  yet  who  can  deny  the  effect  to  be 
perfect, — superior  to  almost  any  similar  passage  in  Wordsworth  ? 
And  why  ?  Because  the  passage  quoted,  and  indeed  the  whole 
poem,  is  perfect  in  what  artists  call  tone, — tone  in  the  metre  and 
in  the  sound  of  the  words,  as  well  as  in  the  images  and  the  feel 
ings  expressed.  The  weariness,  the  dreariness,  the  dark  myste 
rious  waste,  exist  alike  within  and  without,  in  the  slow  monoto 
nous  pace  of  the  metre  and  the  words,  as  well  as  in  the  boundless 
fen,  and  the  heart  of  her  who,  "  without  hope  of  change,  ;n  sleep 
did  seem  to  walk  forlorn."  The  same  faith  in  Nature,  the  same 
instinctive  correctness  in  melody,  springing  from  that  correct  in 
sight  into  Nature,  ran  through  the  poems  inspired  by  mediaeval 
legends.  The  very  spirit  of  the  old  ballad  writers,  with  their 
combinations  of  mysticism  and  objectivity,  their  freedom  from 
any  self-conscious  attempt  at  reflective  epithets  or  figures,  runs 
through  them  all.  We  are  never  jarred  in  them,  as  we  are  in  all  the 
attempts  at  ballad-writing  and  ballad-restoring  before  Mr.  Tenny 
son's  time,  by  discordant  touches  of  the  reflective  in  thought,  the 
picturesque  in  Nature,  or  the  theatric  in  action.  To  illustrate 
our  meaning,  readers  may  remember  the  ballad  of  Fair  Emme- 


182  KINGSLEY'S    MISCELLANIES. 

line,  in  Bishop  Percy's  Eeliques.  The  bishop  confesses,  if  we 
mistake  not,  to  have  patched  the  end  of  the  ballad.  He  need  not 
have  informed  us  of  that  fact,  while  such  lines  as  these  following 
met  our  eyes, — 

The  Baron  turned  aside, 
And  wiped  away  the  rising  tears, 
He  proudly  strove  to  hide  (!!!) 

Conceive  an  old  ballad  writer  dealing  in  such  a  complicated 
concetto  !  As  another,  and  even  a  worse  instance,  did  any  of  our 
readers  ever  remark  the  difference  between  the  old  and  new 
versions  of  the  grand  ballad  of  Glasgerion  ?  In  the  original,  we 
hear  how  the  ellin  harper  could 

Harp  fish  out  of  the  water, 

And  water  out  of  a  stone, 
And  milk  out  of  a  maiden's  breast 

That  bairn  had  never  none. 

For  which  some  benighted  "  restorer  "  substitutes,— 

Oh,  there  was  magic  in  his  touch, 
And  sorcery  in  his  string! 

No  doubt  there  was.  But  while  the  new  poetaster  informs  you 
of  the  abstract  notion,  the  ancient  poet  gives  you  the  concrete 
fact ;  as  Mr.  Tennyson  has  done  with  wonderful  art  in  his  ex 
quisite  St.  Agnes,  where  the  saint's  subjective  mysticism  appears 
only  as  embodied  in  objective  pictures, — 

Break  up  the  heavens,  oh,  Lord !  and  far 

Through  all  yon  starlight  keen 
Draw  me,  thy  bride,  a  glittering  star, 

In  raiment  white  and  clean. 

Sir  Walter  Scott's  ballads  fail  just  on  the  same  point.  Even 
Campbell  cannot  avoid  an  occasional  false  note  of  sentiment.  In 
Mr.  Tennyson  alone,  as  we  think,  the  spirit  of  the  middle  age  is 
perfectly  reflected.  Its  delight,  not  in  the  "  sublime  and  pictur 
esque,"  but  in  the  green  leaves  and  spring  flowers  for  their  own 
sake, — the  spirit  of  Chaucer  and  of  the  Robin  Hood  Garland, — 
the  naturalism  which  revels  as  much  in  the  hedgerow  and  garden 
as  in  alps,  and  cataracts,  and  Italian  skies,  and  the  other  strong 
stimulants  to  the  faculty  of  admiration  which  the  palled  taste  of 
an  unhealthy  age,  from  Keats  and  Byron  down  to  Browning,  has 
rushed  abroad  to  seek.  It  is  enough  for  Mr.  Tennyson's  truly 
English  spirit  to  see  how 

On  either  side  the  river  lie 
Long  fields  of  barley  and  of  rye, 
That  clothe  the  wold  and  meet  the  sky; 
And  through  the  field  the  road  runs  by 
To  many-tower'd  Camelot. 


TENNYSON.  183 

Or  how, 

In  the  stormy  east-wind  straining. 
The  pale  yellow  woods  were  waning, 
The  broad  stream  in  his  banks  complaining, 
Heavily  the  low  sky  raining 
"Over  tower'd  Camelot. 

Give  him  but  such  scenery  as  that,  which  he  can  see  in  every 
parish  in  England,  and  he  will  find  it  a  fit  scene  for  an  ideal 
myth,  subtler  than  a  casuist's  questionings,  deep  as  the  deepest 
heart  of  woman. 

But  in  this  earlier  volume  we  have  only  the  disjecta  membra 
poetce.  The  poet  has  not  yet  arrived  at  the  art  of  combining  his 
new  speculations  on  man  with  his  new  mode  of  viewing  Nature. 
His  objective  pieces  are  too  exclusively  objective,  his  subjective 
too  exclusively  subjective ;  and  where  he  deals  with  natural 
imagery  in  these  latter,  he  is  too  apt,  as  in  JEleanore,  to  fall  back 
upon  the  old  and  received  method  of  poetic  diction,  though  he 
never  indulges  in  a  commonplace  or  a  stock  epithet.  But  in  the 
interval  between  1830  and  1842  the  needful  interfusion  of  the 
two  elements  took  place.  And  in  Locksley  Hall  and  the  Two 
Voices  we  find  the  new  doubts  and  questions  of  the  time  embodied 
naturally  and  organically,  in  his  own  method  of  simple,  natural 
expression.  For  instance,  from  the  Search  for  Truth,  in  the 
Two  Voices, — 

Cry,  faint  not,  climb :  the  summits  lope 
Beyond  the  furthest  flights  of  hope, 
Wrapt  in  dense  cloud  from  base  to  cope. 

Sometimes  a  little  corner  shines, 

As  over  rainy  mist  inclines 

A  gleaming  crag  with  belts  of  pines. 

"I  will  go  forward,"  sayest  thou; 
"  I  shall  not  fail  to  firrd  her  now. 
Look  up,  the  fold  is  on  her  brow." 

Or,  again,  in  Locksley  Hall,  the  poem  which,  as  we  think 
deservedly,  has  had  most  influence  on  the  minds  of  the  young 
men  of  our  day, — 

Eager-hearted  as  a  boy  when  first  he  leaves  his  father's  field, 

And  at  night  along  the  dusky  highway  near  and  nearer  drawn, 

Sees  in  heaven  the  light  of  London  flaring  like  a  dreary  dawn ; 

And  his  spirit  leaps  within  him  to  be  gone  before  him  then, 

Underneath  the  light  he  looks  at,  in  among  the  throngs  of  men; 

Men,  my  brothers,  men  the  workers,  ever  reaping  something  new: 

That  which  they  have  done  but  earnest  of  the  things  which  they  shall  do: 

and  all  the  grand  prophetic  passage  following,  which  is  said, 
we  know  not  how  truly,  to  have  won  for  the  poet  the  respect  of 
that  great  statesman  whose  loss  all  good  men  this  day  deplore. 


184  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

In  saying  that  Locksley  Hall  has  deservedly  had  so  great  an 
influence  over  the  minds  of  the  young,  we  shall,  we  are  afraid, 
have  offended  some  who  are  accustomed  to  consider  that  poem 
as  Werterian  and  unhealthy.  But,  in  reality,  the  spirit  of  the 
poem  is  simply  anti- Werterian.  It  is  a  man  rising  out  of  sick 
ness  into  health, — not  conquered  by  Werterism,  but  conquering 
his  selfish  sorrow,  and  the  moral  and  intellectual  paralysis  which 
it  produces,  by  faith  and  hope, — faith  in  the  progress  of  science 
and  civilization,  hope  in  the  final  triumph  of  good.  Doubtless, 
that  is  not  the  highest  deliverance, — not  a  permanent  deliverance 
at  all.  Faith  in  God  and  hope  in  Christ  alone  can  deliver  a 
man  once  and  for  all,  from  Werterism  or  any  other  moral  disease  ; 
that  truth  was  reserved  for  In  Memoriam :  but  as  far  as  Locks- 
ley  Hall  goes,  it  is  a  step  forward — a  whole  moral  33011  beyond 
Byron  and  Shelley ;  and  a  step,  too,  in  the  right  direction,  just 
because  it  is  a  step  forward, — because  the  path  of  deliverance  is, 
as  Locksley  Hall  sets  forth,  not  backwards  towards  a  fancied  par 
adise  of  childhood — not  backward  to  grope  after  an  unconscious 
ness  which  is  now  impossible,  an  implicit  faith  which  would  be 
unworthy  of  the  man,  but  forward  on  the  road  on  which  God  has 
been  leading  him,  carrying  upward  with  him  the  aspirations  of 
childhood,  and  the  bitter  experience  of  youth,  to  help  the  organ 
ized  and  trustful  labour  of  manhood.  There  are,  in  fact,  only 
two  deliverances  from  Werterism  possible  in  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury  ;  one  is  into  Popery,  and  the  other  is — 

Forward, forward,  let  us  range; 

Let  the  peoples  spin  for  ever  down  the  ringing  grooves  of  change ; 
Through  the  shadow  of  the  world  we  sweep  into  the  younger  day: 
Better  fifty  years  of  Europe  than  a  cycle  of  Cathay. 

But  such  a  combination  of  powers  as  Mr.  Tennyson's  natur 
ally  develop  themselves  into  a  high  idyllic  faculty  ;  for  it  is  the 
very  essence  of  the  idyl  to  set  forth  the  poetry  which  lies  in  the 
simpler  manifestations  of  Man  and  Nature  ;  yet  not  explicitly, 
by  a  reflective  moralizing  on  them,  as  almost  all  our  idyllists — 
Cowper,  Gray,  Crabbe,  and  Wordsworth — have  been  in  the 
habit  of  doing,  but  implicitly,  by  investing  them  all  with  a  rich 
and  delightful  tone  of  colouring,  perfect  grace  of  manner,  perfect 
melody  of  rhythm,  which,  like  a  gorgeous  summer  atmosphere, 
shall  glorify  without  altering  the  most  trivial  and  homely  sights. 
And  it  is  this  very  power,  as  exhibited  in  the  Lord  of  Burleigh, 
Audley  Court,  and  the  Gardener's  Daughter,  which  has  made  Mr. 
Tennyson  not  merely  the  only  English  rival  of  Thocritus  and 
Bion,  but,  in  our  opinion,  as  much  their  superior  as  modern  Eng 
land  is  superior  to  ancient  Greece. 

Yet  in  The  Princess,  perhaps,  Mr.  Tennyson  rises  higher  still. 


TENNYSON.  185 

The  idyllic  manner  alternates  with  the  satiric,  the  pathetic,  even 
the  sublime,  by  such  imperceptible  gradations,  and  continual  deli 
cate  variations  of  key,  that  the  harmonious  medley  of  his  style 
becomes  the  fit  outward  expression  of  the  bizarre  and  yet  har 
monious  fairy-land,  in  which  his  fancy  ranges.  In  this  work,  too, 
Mr.  Tennyson  shows  himself  more  than  ever  the  poet  of  the  day. 
In  it  more  than  ever  the  old  is  interpenetrated  with  the  new — 
the  domestic  and  scientific  with  the  ideal  and  sentimental.  He 
dares,  in  every  page,  to  make  use  of  modern  words  and  notions, 
from  which  the  mingled  clumsiness  and  archaism  of  his  compeers 
shrinks,  as  unpoetical.  Though,  as  we  just  said,  his  stage  is  an 
ideal  fairy-land,  yet  he  has  reached  the  ideal  by  the  only  true 
method, — by  bringing  the  Middle  age  forward  to  the  Present 
one,  and  not  by  ignoring  the  Present  to  fall  back  on  a  cold  and 
galvanized  Medievalism ;  and  thus  he  makes  his  Medley  a 
mirror  of  the  nineteenth  century,  possessed  of  its  own  new 
art  and  science,  its  own  new  temptations  and  aspirations,  and 
yet  grounded  on,  and  continually  striving  to  reproduce,  the  forms 
and  experiences  of  all  past  time.  The  idea,  too,  of  The  Princess 
is  an  essentially  modern  one.  In  every  age  women  have  been 
tempted,  by  the  possession  of  superior  beauty,  intellect,  or  strength 
of  will,  to  deny  their  own  womanhood,  and  attempt  to  stand  alone 
as  men,  whether  on  the  ground  of  political  intrigue,  ascetic  saint- 
ship,  or  philosophic  pride.  Cleopatra  and  St.  Hedwiga,  Madame 
de  Stae'l  and  the  Princess,  are  merely  different  manifestations  of 
the  same  self-willed  and  proud  longing  of  woman  to  unsex  herself, 
and  realize,  single  and  self-sustained,  some  distorted  and  partial 
notion  of  her  own  as  to  what  the  •'  angelic  life "  should  be. 
Cleopatra  acted  out  the  pagan  idea  of  an  angel;  St.  Hedwiga, 
the  mediaeval  one ;  Madame  de  Stae'l  hers,  with  the  peculiar 
notions  of  her  time  as  to  what  "  spirituel"  might  mean  ;  and  in 
The  Princess  Mr.  Tennyson  has  embodied  the  ideal  of  that 
nobler,  wider,  purer,  yet  equally  fallacious,  because  equally  unnat 
ural  analogue,  which  we  may  meet  too  often  up  and  down  England 
now.  He  shows  us  the  woman,  when  she  takes  her  stand  on  the 
false  masculine  ground  of  intellect,  working  out  her  own  moral 
punishment,  by  destroying  in  herself  the  tender  heart  of  flesh  :  not 
even  her  vast  purposes  of  philanthropy  can  preserve  her,  for  they 
are  built  up,  not  on  the  womanhood  which  God  has  given  her,  but 
on  her  own  self-will ;  they  change,  they  fall,  they  become  incon 
sistent,  even  as  she  does  herself,  till  at  last,  she  loses  all  feminine 
sensibility  ;  scornfully  and  stupidly  she  rejects  and  misunderstands 
the  heart  of  man ;  and  then  falling  from  pride  to  sternness,  from 
sternness  to  sheer  inhumanity,  she  punishes  sisterly  love  as  a 
crime,  robs  the  mother  of  her  child,  and  becomes  all  but  a  venge- 


186  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

ful  fury,  with  all  the  peculiar  faults  of  woman,  and  none  of  the 
peculiar  excellences  of  man. 

The  poem  being,  as  its  title  imports,  a  medley  of  jest  and 
earnest,  allows  a  metrical  license,  of  which  we  are  often  tempted 
to  wish  that  its  author  had  not  availed  himself;  yet  the  most 
unmetrical  and  apparently  careless  passages  flow  with  a  grace,  a 
lightness,  a  colloquial  ease  and  frolic,  which  perhaps  only  heighten 
the  effect  of  the  serious  parts,  and  serve  as  a  foil  to  set  off  the 
unrivalled  finish  and  melody  of  these  latter.  In  these  come  out 
all  Mr.  Tennyson's  instinctive  choice  of  tone,  his  mastery  of  lan 
guage,  which  always  fits  the  right  word  to  the  right  thing,  and 
that  word  always  the  simplest  one,  and  the  perfect  ear  for  melody 
which  makes  it  superfluous  to  set  to  music  poetry  which,  read  by 
the  veriest  schoolboy,  makes  music  of  itself.  The  poem,  we  are 
glad  to  say,  is  so  well-known  that  it  seems  unnecessary  to  quote 
from  it  ;  yet  there  are  here  and  there  gems  of  sound  and  ex 
pression  of  which,  however  well  our  readers  may  know  them,  we 
cannot  forbear  reminding  them  again.  For  instance,  the  end  of 
the  Idyl  in  book  vii.,  beginning  "  Come  down,  O  maid,  "  (the 
whole  of  which  is  perhaps  one  of  the  most  perfect  fruits  of  the 
poet's  genius)  :  — 

Myriads  of  rivulets  hurrying  through  the  lawn, 
The  moan  of  doves  in 


And  murmuring  of  innumerable  bees. 

Who,  after  three  such  lines,  will  talk  of  English  as  a  harsh 
and  clumsy  language,  and  seek  in  the  effeminate  and  monotonous 
Italian  for  expressive  melody  of  sound  ?  Who  cannot  hear  in 
them  the  rapid  rippling  of  the  water,  the  stately  calmness  of  the 
wood-dove's  note,  and  in  the  repetition  of  short  syllables  and 
soft  liquids  in  the  last  line,  the 

Murmuring  of  innumerable  bees  ? 

Or  again,  what  extraordinary  combination  of  richness  with 
simplicity  in  such  a  passage  as  this  :  — 

Breathe  upon  my  brows  ; 
In  that  fine  air  I  tremble,  all  the  past 
Melts  mist-like  into  this  bright  hour,  and  this 
I  scarce  believe,  and  all  the  rich  to  come 
Reels,  as  the  golden  Autumn  woodland  reels 
Athwart  the  smoke  of  burning  leaves. 

How  Mr.  Tennyson  can  have  attained  the  prodigal  fulness  of 
thought  and  imagery  which  distinguishes  this  poem,  and  es 
pecially  the  last  canto,  without  his  style  ever  becoming  over 
loaded,  seldom  even  confused,  is  perhaps  one  of  the  greatest 


TENNYSON.  187 

marvels  of  the  whole  production.  The  songs  themselves,  which 
have  been  inserted  between  the  cantos  in  the  last  edition  of  the 
book,  seem,  perfect  as  they  are,  wasted  and  smothered  among 
the  surrounding  fertility ;  till  we  discover  that  they  stand  there, 
not  merely  for  the  sake  of  their  intrinsic  beauty,  but  serve  to 
call  back  the  reader's  mind,  at  every  pause  in  the  tale  of  the 
princess's  folly,  to  that  very  healthy  ideal  of  womanhood  which 
she  has  spurned. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  cantos,  fresh  from  the  description  of  the 
female  college,  with  its  professoresses,  and  hostleresses,  and  other 
Utopian  monsters,  we  turn  the  page  ;  and — 

As  through  the  land  at  eve  we  went, 

And  pmck'd  the  ripen' d  ears, 
We  fell  out,  my  wife  and  I, 

And  kiss'd  again  with  tears: 

And  blessings  on  the  falling-out 

That  all  the  more  endears, 
When  we  fall  out  with  those  we  love, 

And  kiss  again  with  tears ! 

For  when  we  came  where  lies  the  child 

We  lost  in  other  years, 
There  above  the  little  grave, 

We  kiss'd  again  with  tears. 

Between  the  next  two  cantos  intervenes  a  cradle  song,  so  ex 
quisite  that  we  must  ask  leave  to  quote  it  also : — 

Sweet  and  low,  sweet  and  low, 

Wind  of  the  western  sea, 
Low,  low,  breathe  and  blow, 

Wind  of  the  western  sea ! 
Over  the  rolling  waters  go, 
Come  from  the  dropping  moon,  and  blow, 

Blow  him  again  to  me  ; 
While  my  little  one,  while  my  pretty  one  sleeps. 

Sleep  and  rest,  sleep  and  rest, 

Father  will  come  to  thee  soon ; 
Rest,  rest,  on  mother's  breast, 

Father  will  come  to  thee  soon; 
Father  will  come  to  his  babe  in  the  nest, 
Silver  sails  all  out  of  the  west 

Under  the  silver  moon : 
Sleep,  my  little  one,  sleep,  my  pretty  one,  sleep. 

At  the  next  interval  is  the  \yonderful  bugle-song,  the  idea  of 
which  is  that  of  twin-labour  and  twin-fame,  in  a  pair  of  lovers. 

Our  echoes  roll  from  soul  to  soul, 
And  grow  forever  and  forever. 

In  the  next,  the  memory  of  wife  and  child  inspirits  the  soldier 


188  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

in  the  field  ;  in  the  next,  the  sight  of  the  fallen  hero's  child  open 
the  sluices  of  his  widow's  tears  ;  and  in  the  last,  and  perhaps  the 
most  beautiful  of  all,  the  poet  has  succeeded,  in  the  new  edition, 
in  superadding  a  new  form  of  emotion  to  a  canto  in  which  he 
seemed  to  have  exhausted  every  resource  of  pathos  which  his 
subject  allowed ;  and  prepares  us  for  the  triumph  of  that  art  by 
which  he  makes  us,  after  all,  love  the  heroine  whom  he  at  first 
taught  us  to  hate  and  despise,  till  we  see  that  her  naughtiness  is 
after  all  one  that  must  be  kissed  and  not  whipped  out  of  her,  and 
look  on  smiling  while  she  repents,  with  Prince  Harry  of  old, 
"  not  in  sackcloth  and  ashes,  but  in  new  silk  and  old  sack : " — 

Ask  me  no  more:  the  moon  may  draw  the  sea; 

The  cloud  may  stoop  from  Heaven  and  take  the  shape, 

With  fold  to  fold,  of  mountain  or  of  cape; 
But,  0  too  fond,  when  have  I  answer' d  thee? 
Ask  me  no  more. 

Ask  me  no  more:  what  answer  should  I  give? 

I  love  not  hollow  cheek  or  faded  eye: 

Yet,  0  my  friend,  I  will  not  have  thee  die ! 
Ask  me  no  more,  lest  I  should  bid  thee  live; 
Ask  me  no  more. 

Ask  me  no  more:  thy  fate  and  mine  are  seal'd: 

I  strove  against  the  stream  and  all  in  vain: 

Let  the  great  river  take  me  to  the  main: 
No  more,  dear  love,  for  at  a  touch  I  yield ; 
Ask  me  no  more. 

We  now  come  to  the  first  of  the  volumes  whose  names  stand, 
at  the  head  of  our  article — In  Memoriam  ;  a  collection  of  poems 
on  a  vast  variety  of  subjects,  but  all  united  as  their  name  implies, 
to  the  memory  of  a  departed  friend.  We  know  not  whether  to 
envy  more — the  poet  the  object  of  his  admiration,  or  that  object 
the  monument  which  has  been  consecrated  to  his  nobleness.  For 
in  this  latest  and  highest  volume,  written  at  various  intervals 
during  a  long  series  of  years,  all  the  poet's  peculiar  excellences, 
with  all  that  he  has  acquired  from  others,  seem  to  have  been 
fused  down  into  a  perfect  unity,  and  brought  to  bear  on  his  sub 
ject  with  that  care  and  finish  which  only  a  labour  of  love  can 
inspire.  We  only  now  know  the  whole  man,  all  his  art,  all  his 
insight,  all  his  faculty  of  discerning  the  piu  nell'  uno,  and  the  uno 
neW  piu.  As  he  says  himself : — 

My  love  has  talked  with  rocks  and  trees, 

He  finds  on  misty  mountain-ground. 

His  own  vast  shadow  glory-crowned; 
He  sees  himself  in  all  he  sees. 

Everything  reminds  him  of  the  dead.  Every  joy  or  sorrow  of 
man,  every  aspect  of  nature,  from 


TENNYSON.  189 

The  forest  crack' d,  the  waters  curl'd, 

The  cattle  huddled  on  the  lea, 
to 

The  thousand  waves  of  wheat 
That  ripple  round  the  lonely  grange. 

In  every  place  where  in  old  days  they  had  met  and  conversed  ; 
in  every  dark  wrestling  of  the  spirit  with  the  doubts  and  fears  of 
manhood,  throughout  the  whole  outward  universe  of  nature,  and 
the  whole  inward  universe  of  spirit,  the  soul  of  his  dead  friend 
broods — at  first  a  memory  shrouded  in  blank  despair,  then  a 
living  presence,  a  ministering  spirit,  answering  doubts,  calming 
fears,  stirring  up  noble  aspirations,  utter  humility,  leading  the 
poet  upward  step  by  step  to  faith,  and  peace,  and  hope.  Not 
that  there  runs  throughout  the  book  a  conscious  or  organic 
method.  The  poems  seem  often  merely  to  be  united  by  the 
identity  of  their  metre,  so  exquisitely  chosen,  that  while  the 
major  rhyme  in  the  second  and  third  lines  of  each  stanza  gives 
the  solidity  and  self-restraint  required  by  such  deep  themes,  the 
mournful  minor  rhyme  of  each  first  and  fourth  line  always  leads 
the  ear  to  expect  something  beyond,  and  enables  the  poet's 
thoughts  to  wander  sadly  on,  from  stanza  to  stanza  and  poem  to 
poem,  in  an  endless  chain  of 

Linked  sweetness  long  drawn  out. 

There  are  records  of  risings  and  fallings  again,  of  alternate 
cloud  and  sunshine,  throughout  the  book ;  earnest  and  passionate, 
yet  never  bitter ;  humble,  yet  never  abject ;  with  a  depth  and 
vehemence  of  affection  "  passing  the  love  of  woman,"  yet  without 
a  taint  of  sentimentality ;  self-restrained  and  dignified,  without 
ever  narrowing  into  artificial  coldness  ;  altogether  rivalling  the 
sonnets  of  Shakspeare. — Why  should  we  not  say  boldly,  sur 
passing — for  the  sake  of  the  superior  faith  into  which  it  rises, 
for  the  sake  of  the  proem  at  the  opening  of  the  volume — in  our 
eyes,  the  noblest  English  Christian  poem  which  several  centuries 
have  seen  ? 

But  we  must  quote,  and  let  the  poet  tell  his  own  tale ;  though 
the  very  poems  which  we  should  most  wish  to  transcribe  are  just 
those  about  which  we  feel  a  delicacy,  perhaps  morbid,  in  dis 
secting  critically  before  the  public  eye.  They  are  fit  only  to  be 
read  solemnly  in  our  purest  and  most  thoughtful  moods,  in  the 
solitude  of  our  chamber,  or  by  the  side  of  those  we  love,  with 
thanks  to  the  great  heart  who  has  taken  courage  to  bestow  on 
us  the  record  of  his  own  love,  doubt,  and  triumph. 

We  shall  make  no  comments  on  our  extracts.  It  were  an 
injustice  to  the  poet  to  think  they  needed  any. 


190  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 


I  sometimes  hold  it  half  a  sin 
To  put  in  words  the  grie^f  I  feel ; 
For  words,  like  nature,  half  reveal 

And  half  conceal  the  Soul  within. 

But,  for  the  unquiet  heart  and  brain, 
A  use  in  measur'd  language  lies; 
The  sad  mechanic  exercise 

Like  dull  narcotics,  numbing  pain. 

In  words,  like  weeds,  I'll  wrap  me  o'er 
Like  coarsest  clothes  against  the  cold  ; 
But  that  large  grief  which  these  enfold 

Is  given  in  outline  and  no  more. 


The  Danube  to  the  Severn  gave 

The  darken'd  heart  that  beat  no  more; 
They  laid  him  by  the  pleasant  shore, 

And  in  the  hearing  of  the  wave. 

There  twice  a-day  the  Severn  fills; 
The  salt  sea-water  passes  by, 
And  hushes  half  the  babbling  Wye, 

And  makes  a  silence  in  the  hills. 

The  Wye  is  hush'd  nor  moved  along; 
»And  hush'd  my  deepest  grief  of  all, 
When  fill'd  with  tears  that  cannot  fall, 
I  brim  with  sorrow  drowning  song. 

The  tide  flows  down,  the  wave  again 
Is  vocal  in  its  wooded  walls: 
My  deeper  anguish  also  falls, 

And  I  can  speak  a  little  then. 


He  past;  a  soul  of  nobler  tone: 
My  spirit  loved  and  loves  him  yet, 
Like  some  poor  girl  whose  heart  is  set 

On  one  whose  rank  exceeds  her  own. 

He  mixing  with  his  proper  sphere, 
She  finds  the  baseness  of  her  lot; 
Half  jealous  of  she  knows  not  what, 

And  envying  all  that  meet  him  there. 

The  little  village  looks  forlorn; 
She  sighs  amid  her  narrow  days, 
Moving  about  the  household  ways, 

In  that  dark  house  where  she  was  'born. 

The  foolish  neighbours  come  and  go, 
And  tease  her  till  the  day  draws  by ; 
At  night  she  weeps,  "  How  vain  am  I ! 

How  should  he  love  a  thing  so  low?  " 


I  cannot  see  the  features  right, 

When  on  the  gloom  I  strive  to  paint 
The  face  I  know;  the  hues  are  faint, 

And  mix  with  hollow  masks  of  night; 


TENNYSON. 

Cloud-towers  by  ghostly  masons  wrought, 
A  gulf  that  ever  shuts  and  gapes, 
A  hand  that  points,  and  palled  shapes 

In  shadowy  thoroughfares  of  thought; 

And  crowds  that  stream  from  narrow  doors, 
And  shoals  of  pucker' d  faces  drive; 
Dark  bulks  that  tumble  half  alive, 

And  lazy  lengths  on  boundless  shores ; 

Till  all  at  once  beyond  the  will 
I  hear  a  wizard  music  roll, 
And  through  a  lattice  on  the  soul 

Looks  thy  fair  face  and  makes  it  still. 


Sweet  after  showers,  ambrosial  air, 
That  rollest  from  the  gorgeous  gloom 
Of  evening  over  brake  and  bloom 

And  meadow,  slowly  breathing  bare 

The  round  of  space,  and  rapt  below 
Through  all  the  dewy-tassell'd  wood, 
And  shadowing  down  the  horned  flood 

In  ripples,  fan  my  brows  and  blow 

The  fever  from  my  cheek,  and  sigh 
The  full  new  life  that  feeds  the  breath 
Throughout  my  frame,  till  doubt  and  death, 

111  brethren,  let  the  fancy  fly 

From  belt  to  belt  of  crimson  seas 
On  leagues  of  odour  streaming  far, 
To  where  in  yonder  Orient  star 

A  hundred  spirits  whisper  "  Peace." 

LXXXVI. 

Wild  bird,  whose  warble,  liquid  sweet, 
Rings  Eden  through  the  budded  quicks, 

0  tell  me  where  the  senses  mix, 

0  tell  me  where  the  passions  meet, 

Whence  radiate :  fierce  extremes  employ 
Thy  spirits  in  the  dusking  leaf, 
And  in  the  midmost  heart  of  grief 

Thy  passion  clasps  a  secret  joy : 

And  I — my  harp  would  prelude  woe — 

1  cannot  all  command  the  strings ; 
The  glory  of  the  sum  of  things 

Will  flash  along  the  chords  and  go. 

xci. 

1  shall  not  see  thee.     Dare  I  say 
No  spirit  ever  broke  the  band 

That  stays  him  from  the  native  land, 
Where  first  he  walk'd  when  claspt  in  clay? 

No  visual  shade  of  some  one  lost, 
But  he,  the  Spirit  himself,  may  come 
Where  all  the  nerve  of  sense  is  numb ; 

Spirit  to  Spirit,  Ghost  to  Ghost. 


192  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

0,  therefore  from  thy  sightless  range 
With  God  in  unconjectured  bliss, 
0,  from  the  distance  of  the  abyss 

Of  tenfold-complicated  change, 

Descend,  and  touch,  and  enter;  hear 
The  wish  too  strong  for  words  to  name ; 
That  in  this  blindness  of  the  frame 

My  Ghost  may  feel  that  thine  is  near. 


Un watch' d  the  garden  bough  shall  sway, 
The  tender  blossom  nutter  down, 
Unloved  that  beech  will  gather  brown, 

This  maple  burn  itself  away ; 

Unloved,  the  sun-flower,  shining  fair, 
Kay  round  with  flames  her  disk  of  seed, 
And  many  a  rose-carnation  feed 

With  summer  spice  the  humming  air; 

Unloved,  by  many  a  sandy  bar, 

The  brook  shall  babble  down  the  plain, 
At  noon  or  when  the  lesser  wain 

Is  twisting  round  the  polar  star; 

Uncared  for,  gird  the  windy  grove, 

And  flood  the  haunts  of  hern  and  crake ; 
Or  into  silver  arrows  break 

The  sailing  moon  in  creek  and  cove; 

Till  from  the  garden  and  the  wild 

A  fresh  association  blow, 

And  year  by  year  the  landscape  grow 
Familiar  to  the  stranger's  child; 

As  vear  by  year  the  labourer  tills 
If  is  wonted  glebe,  or  lops  the  glades; 
And  year  by  year  our  memory  fades 

From  all  the  circle  of  the  hills. 


Ring  out  wild  bells,  to  the  wild  sky, 
The  flying  cloud,  the  frosty  light; 
The  year  is  dying  in  the  night; 

Eing  out,  wild  bells,  and  let  him  die. 

Ring  out  the  old,  ring  in  the  new, 
Ring,  happy  bells,  across  the  snow: 
The  year  is  going,  let  him  go; 

Ring  out  the  false,  ring  in  the  true. 

Ring  out  the  grief  that  saps  the  mind, 
For  those  that  here  we  see  no  more 
Ring  out  the  feud  of  rich  and  poor, 

Ring  in  redress  to  all  mankind. 

Ring  out  a  slowly  dying  cause, 
And  ancient  forms  of  party  strife  ; 
Ring  in  the  nobler  modes  of  life, 

W  ith  sweeter  manners,  purer  laws. 


TENNYSON.  193 

Ring  out  the  want,  the  care,  the  sin, 

The  faithless  coldness  of  the  times; 

Ring  out,  ring  out  my  mournful  rhymes, 
But  ring  the  fuller  minstrel  in. 

Ring  out  false  pride  in  place  and  blood, 

The  civic  slander  and  the  spite; 

Ring  in  the  love  of  truth  and  right, 
Ring  in  the  common  love  of  good. 

Ring  out  old  shapes  of  foul  disease, 

Ring  out  the  narrowing  lust  of  gold; 

Ring  out  the  thousand  wars  of  old, 
Ring  in  the  thousand  years  of  peace. 

Ring  in  the  valiant  man  and  free, 

The  larger  heart,  the  kindlier  hand; 

Ring  out  the  darkness  of  the  land, 
Ring  in  the  Christ  that  is  to  be. 

CXVI. 

Contemplate  all  this  work  of  time, 

The  giant  labouring  in  his  youth; 

Nor  dream  of  human  love  and  truth, 
As  dying  Nature's  earth  and  lime; 

But  trust  that  those  we  call  the  dead, 

Are  breathers  of  an  ampler  day 

For  ever  nobler  ends.     They  say, 
The  solid  earth  whereon  we  tread 

In  tracts  of  fluent  heat  began, 

And  grew  to  seeming-random  forms, 

The  seeming  prey  of  cyclic  storms, 
Till  at  the  last  arose  the  man ; 

Who  throve  and  branch' d  from  clime  to  clime, 

The  herald  of  a  higher  race, 

And  of  himself  in  higher  place, 
If  so  he  type  this  work  of  time 

Within  himself,  from  more  to  more; 

Or,  crown'd  with  attributes  of  woe, 

Like  glories,  move  his  course,  and  show 
That  life  is  not  an  idle  ore, 

But  iron  dug  from  central  gloom, 

And  heated  hot  with  burning  fears, 

And  dipp'd  in  baths  of  hissing  tears, 
And  batter'd  with  the  shocks  of  doom 

To  shape  and  use.    Arise  and  fly 

The  reeling  Faun,  the  sensual  feast; 

Move  upward,  working  out  the  beast, 
And  let  the  ape  and  tiger  die. 

CXXVII. 

Dear  friend,  far  off,  my  lost  desire, 

So  far,  so  near  in  woe  and  weal ; 

O,  loved  the  most  when  I  must  feel 
There  is  a  lower  and  a  higher; 


194  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

Known,  and  unknown,  human,  divine! 
Sweet  human  hand  and  lips  and  eye,_ 
Dear  heavenly  friend  that  canst  not  die,       % 

Mine,  mine,  forever,  ever  mine ! 

Strange  friend,  past,  present,  and  to  be, 

Loved  deeplier,  darklier  understood; 

Behold  I  dream  a  dream  of  good, 
And  mingle  all  the  world  with  thee. 

CXXIX. 

0  living  will  that  shalt  endure 

When  all  that  seems  shall  suffer  shock, 

Rise  in  the  spiritual  rock, 
Flow  through  our  deeds  and  make  them  pure, 

That  we  may  lift  from  out  the  dust 

A  voice  as  unto  him  that  hears, 

A  cry  above  the  conquer'd  years 
To  one  that  with  us  works,  and  trust 

With  faith  that  comes  of  self-control, 

The  truths  that  never  can  be  proved 

Until  we  close  with  all  we  loved, 
And  all  we  flow  from,  soul  in  soul. 

From  the  proem,  or  from  the  exquisite  epithalamium  at  the 
end  of  the  volume,  we  shall  not  quote  ;  they  are  too  long  to  be 
inserted  at  length,  and  too  perfect  wholes  for  us  to  mar  them  by 
any  curtailment. 

It  has  been  often  asked  why  Mr.  Tennyson's  great  and  varied 
powers  had  never  been  concentrated  on  one  immortal  work.  The 
epic,  the  lyric,  the  idyllic  faculties,  perhaps  the  dramatic  also, 
seemed  to  be  all  there,  and  yet  all  sundered,  scattered  about  in 
small  fragmentary  poems.  In  Memoriam,  as  we  think,  explains 
the  paradox.  Mr.  Tennyson  could  not  write  an  epos  or  a  drama 
while  he  was  living  one.  It  was  true,  as  people  said,  that  his 
secluded  habits  had  shut  him  out  from  that  knowledge  of  human 
character  necessary  for  the  popular  dramatist ;  but  he  had  been 
talking  all  the  while  with  angels.  Within  the  unseen  world  which 
underlies  and  explains  this  mere  time-shadow,  which  men  call 
Reality  and  Fact,  he  had  been  going  down  into  the  depths,  and 
ascending  into  the  heights,  led,  like  Dante  of  old,  by  the  guiding 
of  a  mighty  spirit.  And  in  this  volume,  the  record  of  seventeen 
years,  we  have  the  result  of  those  spiritual  experiences  in  a  form 
calculated,  as  we  believe,  to  be  a  priceless  benefit  to  many  an 
earnest  seeker  in  this  generation,  and  perhaps  to  stir  up  some 
who  are  priding  themselves  on  a  cold  dilettantism  and  barren 
-epicurism,  into  something  like  a  living  faith  and  hope.  Blessed 
and  delightful  it  is  to  find,  that  even  in  these  new  ages  the  creeds 
which  so  many  fancy  to  be  at  their  last  gasp,  are  still  the  final 
and  highest  succour,  not  merely  of  the  peasant  and  the  outcast, 


TENNYSON.  195 

but  of  the  subtle  artist  and  the  daring  speculator  !  Blessed  it  is 
to  find  the  most  cunning  poet  of  our  day  able  to  combine  the 
complicated  rhythm  and  melody  of  modern  times  with  the  old 
truths  which  gave  heart  to  martyrs  at  the  stake,  to  see  in  the 
science  and  the  history  of  the  nineteenth  century  new  and  living 
fulfilments  of  the  words  which  we  learnt  at  our  mothers'  knee ! 
Blessed,  thrice  blessed,  to  find  that  hero-worship  is  not  yet  passed 
away ;  that  the  heart  of  man  still  beats  young  and  fresh ;  that 
the  old  tales  of  David  and  Jonathan,  Damon  and  Pythias,  So 
crates  and  Alcibiades,  Shakspeare  and  his  nameless  friend,  of 
"  love  passing  the  love  of  woman,"  ennobled  by  its  own  humility, 
deeper  than  death,  and  mightier  than  the  grave,  can  still  blossom 
out  if  it  be  but  in  one  heart  here  and  there  to  show  men  still 
how  sooner  or  later  "  he  that  loveth  knoweth  God,  for  God  is 
Love !  " 


196  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 


THE  POETRY  OF  SACRED  AND  LEGENDARY 
ART. 

[Eraser's  Magazine.] 

MUCH  attention  has  been  excited  this  year  (1849)  by  the 
alleged  fulfilment  of  a  prophecy  that  the  Papal  power  was  to 
receive  its  death-blow — in  temporal  matters,  at  least — during  the 
past  year  1848.  For  ourselves,  we  have  no  more  faith  in  Mr. 
Fleming,  the  obsolete  author,  who  has  so  suddenly  revived  in  the 
public  esteem,  than  we  have  in  other  interpreters  of  prophecy. 
Their  shallow  and  bigoted  views  of  past  history  are  enough  to 
damp  our  faith  in  their  discernment  of  the  future.  It  does  seem 
that  people  ought  to  understand  what  has  been,  before  they  pre 
dict  what  will  be.  History  is  "the  track  of  God's  footsteps 
through  time  ;  "  it  is  in  his  dealings  with  our  forefathers  that  we 
may  expect  to  find  the  laws  by  which  he  will  deal  with  us.  Not 
that  Mr.  Fleming's  conjecture  must  be  false  ;  among  a  thousand 
guesses  there  ought  surely  to  be  one  right  one.  And  it  is  almost 
impossible  for  earnest  men  to  bend  their  whole  minds,  however 
clumsily,  to  one  branch  of  study  without  arriving  at  some  truth 
or  other.  The  interpreters  of  prophecy,  therefore,  like  all  other 
interpreters,  have  our  best  wishes,  though  not  our  sanguine  hopes. 
But,  in  the  mean  time,  there  are  surely  signs  of  the  approaching 
ruin  of  Popery,  more  certain  than  any  speculations  on  the  mys 
tic  numbers  of  the  Revelation.  We  should  point  to  recent  books, 
— not  to  books  which  merely  expose  Rome, — that  has  been  done 
long  ago,  usque  ad  nauseam, — but  to  books  which  do  her  justice, 
— to  Mr.  Maitland's  Dark  Ages  ;  Lord  Lindsay's  Christian  Art ; 
Mr.  Macaulay's  new  History  of  England  ;  and  last,  but  not  least, 
to  the  very  charming  book  of  Mrs.  Jameson,  whose  title  heads 
this  review.  In  them  and  in  a  host  of  similar  works  in  Germany, 
which  Dr.  Wiseman's  party  hail  as  signs  of  coming  triumph,  we 

Sacred  and  Legendary  Art.     By  MKS.  JAMESON. 


THE  POETRY  OF  SACRED  AND  LEGENDARY  ART.    197 

fancy  we  see  the  death-warrant  of  Romanism  ;  because  they 
prove  that  Rome  has  nearly  done  her  work, — that  the  Protestants 
are  learning  the  lesson  for  the  sake  of  which  Providence  has  so 
long  borne  with  that  monstrous  system.  When  Popery  has  no 
more  truth  to  teach  us,  (and  it  certainly  has  not  much,)  but  not 
till  then,  will  it  vanish  away  into  its  native  night. 

We  entreat  Protestant  readers  not  to  be  alarmed  at  us.  We 
have  not  the  slightest  tendency  toward  the  stimulants  of  Popery, 
either  in  their  Roman  unmixed  state,  or  in  their  Oxford  form, 
diluted  with  much  cold  water  and  no  sugar.  We  are,  with  all 
humility,  more  Protestant  than  Protestantism  itself ;  our  fastidi 
ous  nostril,  more  sensitive  of  Jesuits  than  even  those  of  the 
author  of  ffawkstone,  has  led  us  at  moments  to  fancy  that  we 
scent  indulgences  in  Conduit  Street  Chapel,  and  discern  inquisi 
tors  in  Exeter  Hall  itself.  Seriously,  none  believe  more  firmly 
than  ourselves  that  the  cause  of  Protestantism  is  the  cause  of  lib 
erty,  of  civilization,  of  truth ;  the  cause  of  man  and  God.  And 
because  we  think  Mrs.  Jameson's  book  especially  Protestant,  both 
in  manner  and  intention,  and  likely  to  do  service  to  the  good 
cause,  we  are  setting  to  work  herein  to  praise  and  recommend  it. 
For  the  time,  we  think,  for  calling  Popery  ill  names  is  past; 
though  to  abstain  is  certainly  sometimes  a  sore  restraint  for 
English  spirits,  as  Mrs.  Jameson  herself,  we  suspect,  has  found ; 
but  Romanism  has  been  exposed,  and  refuted  triumphantly,  every 
month  for  centuries,  and  yet  the  Romish  nations  are  not  con 
verted  ;  and  too  many  English  families  of  late  have  found,  by 
sad  experience,  that  such  arguments  as  are  in  vogue  are  power 
less  to  dissuade  the  young  from  rushing  headlong  into  the  very 
superstitions  which  they  have  been  taught  from  their  childhood 
to  deride.  The  truth  is,  Protestantism  may  well  cry,  "  Save  me 
from  my  friends !  "  We  have  attacked  Rome  too  often  on  shal 
low  grounds,  and  finding  our  arguments  weak,  have  found  it 
necessary  to  overstate  them.  We  have  got  angry,  and  caught  up 
the  first  weapon  which  came  to  hand,  and  have  only  cut  our  own 
lingers.  We  have  very  nearly  burnt  the  Church  of  England 
over  our  ^heads,  in  our  hurry  to  make  a  bonfire  of  the  Pope. 
We  have  been  too  proud  to  make  ourselves  acquainted  with  the 
very  tenets  which  we  exposed,  and  have  made  a  merit  of  read 
ing  no  Popish  books  but  such  as  we  were  sure  would  give  us  a 
handle  for  attack,  and  not  even  them  without  the  precaution  of 
getting  into  a  safe  passion  beforehand.  We  have  dealt  in  exag 
gerations,  in  special  pleadings,  in  vile  and  reckless  imputations  of 
motive,  in  suppressions  of  all  palliating  facts.  We  have  outraged 
the  common  feelings  of  humanity  by  remaining  blind  to  the  vir 
tues  of  noble  and  holy  men  because  they  were  Papists,  as  if  a 


IDS  KixcsU'Y'S   MISCELLANIES. 

I  deed  was  not  good  ill   ll:ily  MS  well   MS    Kngland.      We    ha\e 

talked  MM  if  <  iod  |IM<!  (loomed  |o  hopeless  vileness  in  this  world, 
Mini  reprobation  in  the  nrxl,  millions  of  Christian  people,  simply 
because  they  were  born  ol'  K'omish  Mild  no!  ol'  Protestant  lathers. 
And  \ve  have  our  reward  ;  we  have  fared  like  the  old  woman 
\\li<>  would  not  (ell  (he  children  \\li.u  M  well  \\;i  for  l<:ir  they 
should  fall  into  one.  We  see  ednealed  and  pious  Englishmen 

joining  the  Romish  communion  simply  from  Ignorvqoe  <>f  l\ome, 

and  h:i\<  no  talisman  \\li<  n  \\nh  |o  disenchant  them.  ()nr  medi 
cines  produce  no  ellcct  on  them,  Mild  M!)  we  can  do  is,  like  quacks, 
to  increase  the  dose.  (  )f  course  if  ten  hoxes  of  IMorison's  pills 
have  killed  a  man,  it  only  proves  that  —  lie  ought  to  have  taken 
twelve  of  diem.  We  are  jesting,  hnl,  MS  MII  I'lsler  Orangeman 
would  say,  "  it  is  in  good  Protestant  earnest." 

To  return.  In  the  mean  time  some  of  the  deepest  cravings  of 
the  human  heart  ha\e  been  left  utterly  unsatisfied.  And  he  it 
remembered,  ihal  such  universal  cravings  arc  more  than  fancies; 
they  are  indications  of  deep  spiritual  wants,  which,  unless  we 
supply  them  with  the  ••...>,!  food  which  ( iod  has  made  for  them, 
will  supply  themselves  with  poison,  -  indications  of  spiritual  facul 
ties,  which  it  is  as  wicked  to  stunt  or  distort  by  misedncalion  as 
it  is  to  maim  our  own  limbs  or  stupefy  onr  understanding.  Our 
humanity  is  an  awful  and  divine  -Hi  ;  our  business  is  to  educate 
it  throiii'.houl  (Jod  alone  must  jnd^e  which  part  of  it  shall  pre 
ponderate  over  the  rest.  lint  in  the  last  j.'enera!ion  and,  alas  ! 
in  this  also — little  or  no  proper  care  has  been  taken  of  the  love 
for  all  which  is  romantic,  marvellous,  heroic,  which  exists  in 
e\ery  ingenuous  child.  Schoolboys,  indeed,  nii^hl,  it  they  chose, 
in  play-nours,  gloat  over  the  X'/v//  Champions  of  (Vtristcndonii 
or  Lemprierc's  gods  and  goddesses  ;  girls  might,  perhaps,  be 
aliOWdd  to  devour  by  stealth  a  few  fairy  tales,  or  the  Ant/>i<in 
A/<////.<>;  but  it  was  only  by  connivance  that  their  longings  were 
satislied  from  the  scraps  of  Moslemism,  Paganism,-  anywhere 
but  from  Christianity.  Protestantism  had  nothing  to  do  with  tin- 
imagination^ — in  tact,  it  was  a  question  whether  reasonable  peo 
ple  Jiad  any  ;  whether  the  devil  was  not  the  original  maker  of 
that,  troublesome  faculty  in  man,  woman,  and  child.  Poeirv 
itself  was,  with  most  parenls,  a  dram,  to  be  given,  like  Dalb\'s 
( 'arminal  ive,  as  a  />is  «r//c/\  when  children  could  not  po»il>l\  lie 
kepi  (|iiiel  by  Miss  Mdgewoi'lli  or  Airs.  Alangnall.  Then,  as  (he 
children  grew  up,  and  began  to  know  something  of  history  and 
ail,  (wo  still  higher  cravings  began  to  sei/.e  on  many  of  them,  if 
ibey  were  at  all  of  deep  and  earnest  character  :  a  de  ire  to  asso 
ciate  with  religion  their  new  love  for  the  beautiful,  and  a  rever 
ence  lor  antiquity  ;  a  wish  to  find  some  bond  of  union  between 


TIIK    I'OKTKY    01'    SACKKD    AND    UKiKND AltV     AIM'.          j  «.)<) 

them  dye.  rind  the  fifteen  cenliirie.,  of  ( 'hri  .liaiiily  which  e|:ip:'.ec| 
hdorc  the  L'd'ornial  ion.  They  :ipph.  d  lo  1'role  In,!  li-MclierH 
Mini  1'role:  .(Mill  hool..  ,  Mini  received  loo  often  the  Mil  iVVW  MIM|.  "  llic 
(iowpcl  had  nothing  lo  do  with  arl,  MI!  WUH  either  I'M-MII  or 
I'opi  h  ;  "  Miid  M  for  "  llic  cenliirici  hdorc  the  ({eforitilll  ion,  they 
Mini hill  in  them  hdonycd  nllerly  lo  darklK'SH  JUld  (he  pil."  A  lor 
"  Ihe  heroc  .  of  cMrly  (  'hri  liMiiily,  lliey  were  m:idnien  or  luimliiigK; 
lei-end  dcyili  .h  Miid  filthy  pncrililic.  ."  They  went,  lolhc 

Mild      lileiMry     men,    Mild      received     III'1    ..Mllie    JUIHWe.r.        "Tll(? 

•VM.I    wriler     were    fooh.      ( 'hi     icul    nil    WMS    the.    only    MI!  ; 

he .Mire,  M,  I''u.  cli  Mid,  ( 'hri.  I  iMiiil  y  h.'id  helped  Mrl  M  lilllc;"  hut, 
then  i!  WM  the  (  'lirisl  i:mil  y  of  ".lulio  Miid  Leone," —in  hliort  of 
Ihe  wor,  I  M;<C  of  I'opcry. 

The  e  IM!  diood  liM\c  \vorked  out  (heir  own  pillii  liineiil.  The. 
vouii"  MI-C  exMininin;'  for  I  hein.s(d  ve  M,  Miid  lindni"  lliMl  we  IIMVC 

dece|\e,|      iheill,     M.     rcVlll     ioll      ill     their      fec|i||i<H      IlilH      hlkcn       pl.ire, 

niiniliir  lo  lliMl  which  look  pl:icc  in  ( icrniMiiy  .  om<-  liM.lf  r-cnlni  y 
M;-O.  They  MIC  re.'idiii;'  llic  hi  lorie,  of  the  middle  n^e  ,  Miid  il 
we.  CM||  them  I.MrhMroii  ,  they  will  JM-.-III!  il,  ;md  Mien  (|iiolc.  iu- 
slMJU'CM  of  indi\idiiMl  heroi  ,m  Miid  piely,  which  they  defy  IIH  or 
M.ny  hone  ,1  IIIM.II  not,  lo  Mdinirc.  They  MIC  K  Mdiny  llic  old  IcjM-ndH, 
Miid  when  we  CM||  llie.in  super  lilioits — lll<!y  ^I'Miil,  il,  and  then 
produce  pM  MJ/C  in  \\hidi  lh<-  hi;dic.|.  docl  rine  ;  of  (  !hri  ,1  .iunil  y 
MI-C  cmhodied  in  (he  mo  i  pMthelic  Mini  iiohlc.  Hl,orieH.  'I'li'-y  are 
lookin;-  lor  them  dvr-.<  al  (lie  Mllle- RnplKUtllic,  urlJHl.H,  Mild  when 
we  tdl  tin  m  that  I''i'M  Anyelico''..  piciun-  a.  re.  weak ,  Mfl«-<-|c.|,  ill- 
dr.-iwn,  ill  coloured,  Ihey  ;.|-MII|  il,  and  (hen  M,Hk  IIH  if  we  «  .m 
deny  llic  weeine  ,  tin-  purity,  Ihe  rapl  devolion,  llic  HM.inlly  vir- 
liic,' which  him-  loril,  frOffl  In  I."'1  •  The/ I  I.  n  .  how  heaiiliful 
and  holy  word  or  II-MH  CMII  l,e  in  pin-d  hy  an  evil  ;  piril. 
They  JlHk  US  why  llicy  are  lo  deny  Ihe  excellence,  of  (ale  Miid 
picture.  .  which  niMl.c  men  more  pm,-  :m.|  humhlc,  more.  eurn«!Ht 
Miid  nohlc.  'I  hey  Idl  |]|  Iruly  lliMl.  all  heaiily  i  (.o-T,  lamp, 
Miid  HIM!  all  I.e.-mly  on-Ill  to  he  COM  .ceiled  |,o  ||JH  j.crvice.  And 
l.lie.n  they  a.  k  us,  u  If  1'role  |MII!I  m  d.-nie  (|,M|  he  CMII  con  err.ile 
the  hcMiiiilul,  how  CMII  you  wonder  if  we.  love  the  UoirmniHrn, 

which   CMII?        Von      My    lh:il.    l'"p--ry   c!c:i!<-d    I  .he   i;  ^lorioil  :.  i-.chool 
of   MI!:    how    cafl    you    wonder   if,    like,    Overheck,   "  we.    |M!'.C.    the 
iMilh  lor  Ihe     Mke.  of  ihe  Mrl,  which  il,  in  -pi  red?" 

To  M||  which,  he  it  true  or  fal;-e,  (:uid  it  i  holhj  are  we  to 
MII  '.\  er  merely  hy  f'hullin;'  our  eye  MIH!  ciirn  I  i"hl,  M nd  yelling 
"No  I'opery!"  or  ;ire  we  (,,  M;  holdly  lo  ihem,  '•  VV'c  conlitMM 
ourd\e,  in  iiinli.  ;  we.  :  .y  m  p;i  1 1 1 1  /.<•  with  your  longing  ;  RT6  COfl 

fCHH    lliMl      1'role     tMllll     III    II M.,    I.OI        Mil     lied     then,    ;   hul.     U.      ;,        .Hlhal 


200  ,f,     KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 


the  only  cause  is,  that  Protestantism  has  not  been  true  to  her 
self;  that  Art,  like  every  other  product  of  the  free  human  spirit, 
is  her  domain,  and  not  Popery's  ;  that  these  legends,  these  pic 
tures,  are  beautiful  just  in  as  far  as  they  contain  in  them  the 
germs  of  those  eternal  truths  about  man,  nature,  and  God,  which 
the  Reformation  delivered  from  bondage ;  that  you  can  admire 
them,  and  yet  remain  thorough  Protestants ;  and  more,  that  un 
less  you  do  remain  Protestants,  you  will  never  enter  into  their 
full  beauty  and  significance,  because  you  will  lose  sight  of  those 
very  facts  and  ideas  from  which  they  derive  all  their  healthy 
power  over  you  ?  " 

These  thoughts  are  not  our  own  ;  they  are  uttered  all  over 
England,  thank  God  !  just  now,  by  many  voices  and  in  many 
forms  :  if  they  had  been  boldly  spoken  during  the  last  fifteen 
years,  many  a  noble  spirit,  we  believe,  might  have  remained  in 
the  Church  of  its  fathers  which  has  now  taken  refuge  in  Roman 
ism  from  the  fruits  of  miseducation.  One  great  reason  why 
Romanism  has  been  suffered  to  drag  on  its  existence  is,  we  hum 
bly  think,  that  it  might  force  us  at  last  to  say  this.  We  have 
been  long  learning  the  lesson  ;  till  we  have  learned  it  thoroughly 
Romanism  will  exist,  and  we  shall  never  be  safe  from  its  allure 
ments. 

These  thoughts  may  help  to  explain  our  opening  sentences,  as 
well  as  the  extreme  pleasure  with  which  we  hail  the  appearance 
of  Mrs.  Jameson's  work. 

The  authoress  has  been  struck,  during  her  examination  of  the 
works  of  Christian  artists,  with  the  extreme  ignorance  which 
prevails  in  England  on  the  subjects  which  they  portray. 

We  have  had  (she  says,  in  an  introduction,  every  word  of 
which  we  recommend  as  replete  with  the  truest  Christian  philos 
ophy),—- 

"  Inquiries  into  the  principles  of  taste,  treatises  on  the  sublime  and 
beautiful,  anecdotes  of  painting,  and  we  abound  in  antiquarian  essays 
n  disputed  pictures  and  mutilated  statues  ;  but  up  to  a  late  period 
any  inquiry  into  the  true  spirit  and  significance  of  works  of  art,  as 
connected  with  the  history  of  religion  and  civilization,  would  have 
appeared  ridiculous,  or,  perhaps,  dangerous.  We  should  have  had 
another  cry  of  '  No  Popery  !'  and  Acts  of  Parliament  prohibiting  the 
importation  of  saints  and  Madonnas."— P.  xxi. 

And  what  should  we  have  gained  by  it,  but  more  ignorance  of 
the  excuses  for  Popery,  and,  therefore,  of  its  real  dangers  ?  If 
Protestantism  be  the  truth,  knowledge  of  whatsoever  kind  can 
only  further  it.  We  have  found  it  so  in  the  case  of  classical  liter 
ature.  Why  should  we  strain  at  a  gnat  and  swallow  a  camel  ? 
Our  boys  have  not  taken  to  worshipping  Jupiter  and  Juno  by 


THE  POETRY  OF  SACRED  AND  LEGENDARY  ART.   201 

reading  about  them.  We  never  feared  that  they  would.  We 
knew  that  we  should  not  make  them  pagans  by  teaching  them 
justly  to  admire  the  poetry,  the  philosophy,  the  personal  virtues 
of  pagans.  And,  in  fact,  the  few  who  since  the  revival  of  letters 
have  deserted  Christianity  for  what  they  called  philosophic  hea 
thenism,  have  in  almost  every  case  sympathized,  not  with  the 
excellences,  but  with  the  worst  vices  of  the  Greek  and  Roman. 
They  have  been  men  like  Leo  X.  or  the  Medici,  who,  ready  to 
be  profligates  under  any  religion,  found  in  heathenism  only  an 
excuse  for  their  darling  sins.  The  same  will  be  the  fruits  of 
a  real  understanding  of  the  mediaeval  religion.  It  will  only  en 
danger  those  who  carried  already  the  danger  in  themselves,  and 
would  have  fallen  into  some  other  .snare  if  this  had  been  away. 
Why  should  we  fancy  that  Protestantism,  like  the  Romanism 
which  it  opposes,  is  a  plant  that  will  not  bear  the  light,  and  can 
only  be  protected  at  the  expense  of  the  knowledge  of  facts  ? 
Why  will  we  forget  the  great  spiritual  law  which  Mrs.  Jameson 
and  others  in  these  days  are  fully  recognizing,  that  "  we  cannot 
safely  combat  the  errors  of  any  man  or  system  without  first  giv 
ing  them  full  credit  for  whatever  excellences  they  may  retain  ?  " 
Such  a  course  is  the  true  fruit  of  that  free  spirit  of  Protestantism 
which  ought  to  delight  in  recognizing  good  to  whatever  party  it 
may  belong ;  which  asserts  that  every  good  gift  and  perfect  gift 
comes  directly  from  above,  and  not  through  the  channel  of  par 
ticular  formularies  or  priesthoods  ;  which,  because  it  loves  faith 
and  virtue  for  their  own  sakes,  and  not  as  mere  parts  of  a 
"  Catholic  system,"  can  recognize  them  and  delight  in  them 
wherever  it  finds  them. 

"  Upon  these  creations  of  ancient  art  (as  Mrs.  Jameson  says)  we 
cannot  look  as  those  did  for  whom  they  were  created ;  we  cannot  anni 
hilate  the  centuries  which  lie  between  us  and  them ;  we  cannot,  in 
simplicity  of  heart,  forget  the  artist  in  the  image  he  has  placed  before 
us,  nor  supply  what  may  be  deficient  in  his  work  through  a  reveren 
tially  excited  fancy.  We  are  critical,  not  credulous.  We  no  longer 
accept  this  polytheistic  form  of  Christianity ;  and  there  is  little  danger, 
I  suppose,  of  our  falling  again  into  the  strange  excesses  of  superstition 
to  which  it  led.  But  if  I  have  not  much  sympathy  with  modern  imita 
tions  of  mediaeval  art,  still  less  can  I  sympathize  with  that  narrow  puri 
tanical  jealousy  which  holds  the  monuments  of  a  real  and  earnest  faith 
in  contempt :  all  that  God  has  permitted  to  exist  once  in  the  past  should 
be  considered  as  the  possession  of  the  present ;  sacred  for  example  or 
warning,  and  held  as  the  foundation  on  which  to  build  up  what  is  bet 
ter  and  purer." — Introd.  p.  xx. 

Mrs.  Jameson  here  speaks  in  the  name  of  a  large  and  rapidly 
increasing  class.  The  craving  for  religious  art,  of  which  we 
spoke  above,  is  spreading  far  and  wide ;  even  in  dissenting 

9* 


202  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

chapels  we  see  occasional  attempts  at  architectural  splendour, 
which  would  have  been  considered  twenty  years  ago  heretic  or 
idolatrous.  And  yet  with  all  this  there  is,  as  Mrs.  Jameson  says, 
a  curious  ignorance  with  regard  to  the  subject  of  mediaeval  art, 
even  though  it  has  now  become  a  reigning  fashion  among  us. 

"  We  have  learned,  perhaps,  after  running  through  half  the  galleries 
and  churches  in  Europe,  to  distinguish  a  few  of  the  attributes  and 
characteristic  figures  •which  meet  us  at  every  turn,  yet  without  any 
clear  idea  of  their  meaning,  derivation,  or  relative  propriety.  The 
palm  of  victory,  we  know,  designates  the  martyr,  triumphant  in  death. 
We  so  far  emulate  the  critical  sagacity  of  the  gardener  in  Zeluco,  that 
we  have  learned  to  distinguish  St.  Laurence  by  his  gridiron,  and  St. 
Catherine  by  her  wheel.  We  are  not  at  a  loss  to  recognize  the  Magda 
lene's  'loose  hair  and  lifted  eye,'  even  when  without  her  skull  and  her 
vase  of  ointment.  We  learn  to  know  St.  Francis  by  his  brown  habit, 
and  shaven  crown,  and  wasted,  ardent  features ;  but  how  do  we  dis 
tinguish  him  from  St.  Anthony,  or  St.  Dommick  ?  As  for  St.  George 
and  the  dragon — from  the  St.  George  of  the  Louvre — Raphael's — who 
sits  his  horse  with  the  elegant  tranquillity  of  one  assured  of  celestial 
aid,  down  to  him  '  who  swings  on  a  sign-post  at  mine  hostess's  door,' — 
he  is  our  familiar  acquaintance.  But  who  is  that  lovely  being  in  the 
first  blush  of  youth,  who,  bearing  aloft  the  symbolic  cross,  stands  with 
one  foot  on  the  vanquished  dragon  ?  «  That  is  a  copy  after  Raphael.' 
And  who  is  that  majestic  creature  holding  her  palm  branch,  while  the 
unicorn  crouches  at  her  feet  ?  '  That  is  the  famous  Moretto  at  Vienna.' 
Are  we  satisfied  ?  Not  in  the  least !  but  wo  try  to  look  wiser,  and 
pass  on. 

"  In  the  old  times,  the  painters  of  these  legendary  scenes  and  sub 
jects  could  always  reckon  securely  on  certain  associations  and  certain 
sympathies  in  the  minds  of  the  spectators.  We  have  outgrown  these 
associations,  we  repudiate  these  sympathies.  We  have  taken  these 
works  from  their  consecrated  localities,  in  which  they  once  held  each 
their  dedicated  place,  and  we  have  hung  them  in  our  drawing-rooms 
and  our  dressing-rooms,  over  our  pianos  and  our  sideboards,  and  now 
what  do  they  say  to  us  ?  That  Magdeleue,  weeping  amid  her  hair, 
who  once  spoke  comfort  to  the  soul  of  the  fallen  sinner, — that  Sebas 
tian,  arrow-pierced,  whose  upward,  ardent  glance,  spoke  of  courage 
and  hope  to  the  tyrant-ridden  serf, — that  poor  tortured  slave,  to  whose 
aid  St.  Mark  comes  sweeping  down  from  above, — can  they  speak  to  us 
of  nothing  save  flowing  lines,  and  correct  drawing,  and  gorgeous  col 
our  ?  Must  we  be  told  that  one  is  a  Titian,  the"  other  a  Guido,  the 
third  a  Tintoret,  before  we  dare  to  melt  in  compassion  or  admiration  ? 
or  the  moment  we  refer  to  their  ancient  religious  signification  and  in 
fluence,  must  it  be  with  disdain  or  with  pity  ?  This,  as  it  appears  to  me, 
is  to  take  not  a  rational,  but  rather  a  most  irrational,  as  well  as  a  most 
irreverent,  view  of  the  question  :  it  is  to  confine  the  pleasure  and  im 
provement  to  be  derived  from  works  of  art  within  very  narrow  bounds  ; 
it  is  to  seal  up  a  fountain  of  the  richest  poetry,  and  to  shut  out  a  thou 
sand  ennobling  and  inspiring  thoughts.  Happily  there  is  a  growing 
appreciation  of  these  larger  principles  of  criticism  as  applied  to  the 


THE  POETRY  OF  SACRED  AND  LEGENDARY  ART.   203 

study  of  art.  People  look  at  the  pictures  which  hang  around  their 
walls,  and  have  an  awakening  suspicion  that  there  is  more  in  them 
than  meets  the  eye, — more  than  mere  connoisseurship  can  interpret ; 
and  that  they  have  another,  a  deeper  significance  than  has  been 
dreamed  of  by  picture  dealers  and  picture  collectors,  or  even  picture 
critics." — Introd.  p.  xxiii. 

On  these  grounds  Mrs.  Jameson  treats  of  the  Poetry  of  Sacred 
and  Legendary  Art.  Her  first  volume  contains  a  general  sketch 
of  the  legends  connected  with  angels,  with  the  scriptural  person 
ages,  and  the  primitive  fathers.  Her  second,  the  histories  of 
most  of  "  those  sainted  personages  who  lived,  or  are  supposed 
to  have  lived,  in  the  first  ages  of  Christianity,  and  whose  real 
history,  founded  on  fact  or  tradition,  has  been  so  disfigured  by 
poetical  embroidery  that  they  have  in  some  sort  the  air  of  ideal 
beings."  Each  story  is  followed  by  a  series  of  short,  but  brilliant, 
criticisms  on  those  pictures  in  which  the  story  has  been  embodied 
by  painters  of  various  schools  and  periods,  and  illustrated  by 
numerous  spirited  etchings  and  woodcuts,  which  add  greatly  to 
the  value  and  intelligibility  of  the  work.  A  future  volume  is 
promised  which  shall  contain  the  "  legends  of  the  monastic  orders, 
and  the  history  of  the  Franciscans  and  the  Dominicans,  considered 
merely  in  their  connection  with  the  revival  and  the  development 
of  the  fine  arts  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  ; " — a 
work  which,  if  it  equal  the  one  before  us,  will  doubtless  be  hailed 
by  those  conversant  with  that  wonderful  phase  of  human  history 
as  a  valuable  addition  to  our  pschycologic  and  aesthetic  literature. 

We  ought  to  petition,  also,  for  a  volume  which  should  contain 
the  life  of  the  Saviour,  and  the  legends  of  the  Virgin  Mary  ; 
though  this  latter  subject,  we  are  afraid,  will  be  too  difficult  for 
even  Mrs.  Jameson's  tact  and  delicacy  to  make  tolerable  to 
English  readers,  so  thoroughly  has  the  Virgin  Many,  as  especial 
patroness  of  purity,  been  intermixed,  as  a  matter  of  course,  in 
her  legends,  with  every  form  of  prudish  and  prurient  foulminded- 
ness. 

The  authoress  has  wisely  abstained  from  all  controversial  mat 
ters.  In  her  preface  she  begs  that  it  may  be  clearly  understood, 
"that  she  has  taken  throughout  the  [esthetic  and  not  the  religious 
view  of  these  productions  of  art ;  which,  in  as  far  as  they  are  in 
formed  with  a  true  and  earnest  feeling,  and  steeped  in  that  beauty 
which  emanates  from  Genius  inspired  by  Faith,  may  cease  to  be 
religion,  but  cannot  cease  to  be  poetry ;  and  as  poetry  only,"  she 
says,  "  I  have  considered  them."  In  a  word,  Mrs.  Jameson  has 
done  for  them  what  schoolmasters  and  schoolboys,  bishops  and 
Royal  Academicians,  have  been  doing  for  centuries,  by  Greek 
plays  and  Greek  statues,  without  having  incurred,  as  we  said 


204  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

above,  the  slightest  suspicion  of  wanting  to  worship  heathen  gods 
and  goddesses. 

Not  that  she  views  these  stories  with  the  cold,  unbelieving  eye 
of  a  Goethe,  merely  as  studies  of  "  artistic  effect ; "  she  often 
transgresses  her  rule  of  impartiality,  and  just  where  we  should 
wish  her  to  do  so.  Her  geniality  cannot  avoid  an  occasional 
burst  of  feeling,  such  as  concludes  her  notice  of  the  stories  about 
the  Magdalene  and  the  other  "  beatified  penitents." 

"  Poets  have  sung,  and  moralists  and  sages  have  taught,  that  for  the 
frail  woman  there  was  nothing  left  but  to  die ;  or  if  more  remained  for 
her  to  suffer,  there  was  at  least  nothing  left  for  her  to  be  or  do, — no 
choice  between  sackcloth  and  ashes  and  the  livery  of  sin.  The  beatified 
penitents  of  the  early  Christian  Church  spoke  another  lesson, — spoke 
divinely  of  hope  Tor  the  fallen,  hope  without  self-abasement  or  defi 
ance.  We,  in  these  days,  acknowledge  no  such  saints ;  we  have  even 
done  our  best  to  dethrone  Mary  Magdalene ;  but  we  have  martyrs, — 
'by  the  pang  without  the  palm,' — and  one,  at  least,  among  these  who  has 
not  died  without  lifting  up  a  voice  of  eloquent  and  solemn  warning ; 
who  has  borne  her  palm  on  earth,  and  whose  starry  crown  may  be 
seen  on  high  even  now  amid  the  constellations  of  Genius." — Vol.  ii. 
p.  386. 

To  whom  the  authoress  may  allude  in  this  touching  passage 
our  simplicity  cannot  guess  in  the  least.  We  may,  therefore, 
without  the  suspicion  of  partiality,  say  to  the  noble  spirit  of 
purity,  compassion,  and  true  liberality  which  breathes  throughout 
this  whole  chapter,  "  Go  on  and  conquer." 

Nor  again  can  Mrs.  Jameson's  English  honesty  avoid  an  occa 
sional  slip  of  delicate  sarcasm  ;  for  instance,  in  the  story  of  St. 
Filomena,  a  bran-new  saint,  whose  discovery  at  Rome  in  1802 
produced  there  an  excitement  which  we  should  suspect  was  very 
much  wanted,  and  which  we  recommend  to  all  our  readers  as  an 
instance  of  the  state  into  which  the  virtues  of  honesty  and  com 
mon  sense  seem  to  have  fallen  in  the  EteTnal  City — of  humbugs. 

No  doubt  there  are  many  such  cases  of  imposture  among  the 
list  of  saints  and  martyrs  :  yet,  granting  all  which  have  been 
exposed,  and  more,  there  still  remains  a  list  of  authentic  stories, 
sadder  and  stranger  than  any  romance  of  man's  invention,-to  read 
which  without  deep  sympathy  and  admiration  our  hearts  must  be 
callous  or  bigoted  indeed.  As  Mrs.  Jameson  herself  well  says 
(vol.  ii.  p.  137)  :— 

u 

the 

der  sometimes  whether  it  be  with  a  full  appreciation  of  their  meaning 
whether  we  do  really  reflect  on  all  that  this  noble  army  of  martyrs  has 
conquered  for  us  ?  Did  they  indeed  glorify  God  through  their  cour 
age,  and  seal  their  faith  in  their  Redeemer  with  their  blood  ?  And  if 


THE  POETRY  OF  SACRED  AND  LEGENDARY  ART.    205 

it  be  so,  how  is  it  that  we  Christians  have  learned  to  look  coldly  upon 
the  effigies  of  those  who  sowed  the  seed  of  the  harvest  which  we  have 
reaped  ? — Sanguis  martyrum  semen  Christianorum  !  We  may  admit 
that  the  reverence  paid  to  them  in  former  days  was  unreasonable  and 
excessive ;  that  credulity  and  ignorance  have  in  many  instances  falsi 
fied  the  actions  imputed  to  them  ;  that  enthusiasm  has  magnified  their 
numbers  beyond  all  belief;  that  when  the  communion  with  martyrs 
was  associated  with  the  presence  of  their  material  remains,  the  passion 
for  relics  led  to  a  thousand  abuses,  and  the  belief  in  their  intercession 
to  a  thousand  superstitions.  But  why,  in  uprooting  the  false,  uproot 
also  the  beautiful  and  the  true  ?  " 

Thoroughly  and  practically  convinced  as  we  are  of  the  truth  of 
these  words,  it  gave  us  some  pain  when,  in  the  work  of  a  very 
worthy  person,  The  Church  in  the  Catacombs,  by  Dr.  Maitland 
(not  the  author  of  The  Dark  Ages),  we  found,  as  far  as  we  could 
perceive,  a  wish  "  to  advance  the  Protestant  cause"  by  throwing 
general  doubt  on  the  old  martyrologies  and  their  monuments  in 
the  Roman  catacombs.  If  we  shall  have  judged  hastily,  we  shall 
be  ready  to  apologize.  None,  as  we  have  said  before,  more  firmly 
believe  that  the  Protestant  cause  is  the  good  cause ;  none  are 
more  reverentially  inclined  toward  all  honest  critical  investiga 
tions,  more  anxious  to  see  all  truth,  the  Bible  itself,  sifted  and 
tested  in  every  possible  method  ;  but  we  must  protest  against 
what  certainly  seemed  too  contemptuous  a  rejection  of  a  mass  of 
historic  evidence  hitherto  undoubted,  except  by  the  school  of 
Voltaire,  and  of  the  hasty  denial  of  the  meaning  of  Christian 
and  martyrologic  symbols,  as  well  known  to  antiquaries  as  Stone- 
henge  or  Magna  Charta. 

At  the  same  time,  Dr.  Maitland's  book  seems  the  work  of  a 
righteous  and  earnest  man,  and  it  is. not  its  object,  but  its  method, 
of  which  we  complain.  The  whole  question  of  martyrology,  a 
far  more  important  one  than  historians  generally  fancy,  requires 
a  thorough  investigation,  critical  and  historical ;  it  has  to  be  done, 
and  especially  just  now.  The  Germans,  the  civil  engineers  of 
the  intellectual  world,  ought  to  do  it  for  us,  and  no  doubt  will. 
But  those  who  undertake  it  must  bring  to  the  work,  not  only  im 
partiality,  but  enthusiasm ;  it  is  the  spirit  only,  after  all,  which 
can  quicken  the  eye,  which  can  free  the  understanding  from  the 
idols  of  laziness,  prejudice,  and  hasty  induction.  To  talk  philo 
sophically  of  such  matters  a  man  must  love  them ;  he  must  set 
to  work  with  a  Christian  sympathy,  and  a  manly  admiration  for 
those  old  spiritual  heroes  to  whose  virtue  and  endurance  Europe 
owes  it  that  she  is  not  now  a  den  of  heathen  savages.  He  must 
be  ready  to  assume  every  thing  about  them  to  be  true  which  is 
neither  absurd,  immoral,  nor  unsupported  by  the  same  amount  of 
evidence  which  he  would  require  for  any  other  historic  fact.  And, 


206  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

just  because  this  very  tone  of  mind — enthusiastic  but  not  idola 
trous,  discriminating  but  riot  captious — runs  through  Mrs.  Jame 
son's  work,  we  hail  it  with  especial  pleasure,  as  a  fresh  move  in 
a  truly  philosophic  and  Christian  direction.  Indeed,  for  that 
branch  of  the  subject  which  she  has  taken  in  hand,  not  the  his 
tory,  but  the  poetry  of  legends  and  of  the  art  which  they  awakened, 
she  derives  a  peculiar  fitness,  not  merely  from  her  own  literary 
talents  and  acquaintance  with  continental  art,  but  also  from  the 
very  fact  of  her  being  an  English  wife  and  mother.  Women 
ought,  perhaps,,  always  to  make  the  best  critics — at  once  more 
quicksighted,  more  tasteful,  more  sympathetic  than  ourselves, 
whose  proper  business  is  creation.  Perhaps  in  Utopia  they  will 
take  the  reviewer's  business  entirely  off  our  hands,  as  they  are 
said  to  be  doing  already,  by  the  by,  in  one  leading  periodical. 
But  of  all  critics  an  English  matron  ought  to  be  the  best — open 
as  she  should  be,  by  her  womanhood,  to  all  tender  and  admiring 
sympathies,  accustomed  by  her  Protestant  education  to  unsullied 
purity  of  thought,  and  inheriting  from  her  race,  not  only  freedom 
of  mind  and  reverence  for  antiquity,  but  the  far  higher  birthright 
of  English  honesty. 

And  such  a  genial  and  honest  spirit,  we  think,  runs  through 
this  book. 

Another  difficult  task,  perhaps  the  most  difficult  of  all,  the 
authoress  has  well  performed.  We  mean  the  handling  of  stories 
wrhose  facts  she  partly  or  wholly  disbelieves,  while  she  admires 
and  loves  their  spirit  and  moral ;  or  doctrines,  to  pronounce  on 
whose  truth  or  falsehood  is  beyond  her  subject.  This  difficulty 
Mr.  Newman,  in  the  Lives  of  the  English  Saints,  edited  and 
partly  written  by  him,  turned  with  wonderful  astuteness  to  the 
advantage  of  Romanism ;  but  others,  more  honest,  have  not  been 
so  victorious.  Witness  the  painfully  uncertain  impression  left 
by  some  parts  of  Mr.  Milman's  History  of  Christianity,  and,  if 
the  Quarterly  Review  will  excuse  us,  by  the  latter,  in  one  or  two 
of  those  masterly  articles  on  Romish  heroes  which  appeared  in 
that  periodical ;  an  uncertainty  which  we  have  the  fullest  reason 
to  believe  was  most  foreign  to  the  reviewer's  mind  and  conscience. 
Even  Mr.  Macaulay's  brilliant  history  here  and  there  falls  into 
the  same  snare.  ]So  one  but  those  who  have  tried  it  can  be 
aware  of  the  extreme  difficulty  of  preventing  the  dramatic  his 
torian  from  degenerating  into  an  apologist  or  heating  into  a 
sneerer ;  or  understand  the  ease  with  which  an  earnest  author, 
in  a  case  like  the  present,  becomes  frantically  reckless,  under  the 
certainty  that,  say  what  he  will,  he  will  be  called  a  Jesuit  by  the 
Protestants,  an  Infidel  by  the  Papists,  a  Pantheist  by  the  Ultra 
High-Church,  and  a  Rogue  by  all  three. 


THE  POETRY  OF  SACRED  AND  LEGENDARY  ART.    207 

Now,  as  we  intend  to  say  nothing  of  the  authoress  but  what 
she  will  like,  we  certainly  shall  not  say  that  she  is  greater  than 
Milman  or  Macaulay  ;  but  we  must  say,  that  female  tact  and 
deep  devotional  feeling  cut  the  Gordian  knot  which  has  puzzled 
more  cunning  heads.  Not  that  Mrs.  Jameson  is  faultless ;  we 
want  something  yet,  in  the  telling  of  a  Christian  fairy-tale,  and 
know  not  what  we  want ;  but  never  were  legends  narrated  with 
more  discernment  and  simplicity  than  these. 

As  an  instance,  take  the  legend  of  St.  Dorothea,  (vol.  ii.  p.  184,) 
which  is  especially  one  of  those  stories  of  "  sainted  personages 
who,"  as  Mrs.  Jameson  says,  "  lived,  or  are  supposed  to  have 
lived,  in  the  first  ages  of  Christianity ;  and  whose  real  history, 
founded  on  fact  or  tradition,  has  been  so  disguised  by  poetical  em 
broidery,  that  they  have  in  some  sort  the  air  of  ideal  beings ; " 
and  which  may,  therefore,  be  taken  as  a  complete  test  of  the 
authoress's  tact  and  honesty  : — 

"In  the  province  of  Cappadocia  and  in  the  city  of  Cfesarea,  dwelt  a 
noble  virgin,  whose  name  was  Dorothea.  In  the  whole  city  there  was 
none  to  be  compared  to  her  in  beauty  and  grace  of  person.  She  was 
a  Christian,  and  served  God  day  and  night  with  prayers,  with  fasting, 
and  with  alms. 

"  The  governor  of  the  city,  by  name  Sapritius  (or  Fabricius,)  was  a 
very  terrible  persecutor  of  the  Christians,  and  hearing  of  the  maiden, 
and  of  her  great  beauty,  lie  ordered  her  to  be  brought  before  him.  She 
came,  with  her  mantle  folded  on  her  bosom,  and  her  eyes  meekly  cast 
down.  The  governor  asked,  'Who  art  thou?'  and  she  replied,  'I 
am  Dorothea,  a  virgin,  and  a  servant  of  Jesus  Christ,'  He  said, 
'  Thou  must  serve  our  gods,  or  die.'  She  answered  mildly,  '  Be  it 
so ;  the  sooner  shall  I  stand  in  the  presence  of  Him  whom  I  most  de 
sire  to  behold.'  Then  the  governor  asked  her,  'Whom  meanest 
thou  ? '  She  replied,  '  I  mean  the  Son  of  God,  Christ,  mine  espoused  ! 
his  dwelling  is  paradise ;  by  his  side  are  joys  eternal ;  and  in  his  gar 
den  grow  celestial  fruits  and  roses  that  never  fade.'  Then  Sapritius, 
overcome  by  her  eloquence  and  beauty,  ordered  her  to  be  carried 
back  to  her  dungeon.  And  he  sent  to  her  two  sisters,  whose  names 
were  Calista  and  Christeta,  who  had  once  been  Christians,  but  who, 
from  terror  of  the  torments  with  which  they  were  threatened,  had 
•renounced  their  faith  in  Christ.  To  these  women  the  governor  pro 
mised  large  rewards  if  they  would  induce  Dorothea  to  follow  their 
evil  example ;  and  they,  nothing  doubting  of  success,  boldly  undertook 
the  task.  The  result,  however,  was  far  different ;  for  Dorothea,  full 
of  courage  and  constancy,  reproved  them  as  one  having  authority, 
and  drew  such  a  picture  of  the  joys  they  had  forfeited  through  their 
falsehood  and  cowardice,  that  they  fell  at  her  feet,  saying,  '  O  blessed 
Dorothea,  pray  for  us,  that,  through  thy  intercession,  our  sin  may  be 
forgiven  and  our  penitence  accepted  ! '  And  she  did  so.  And  when 
they  had  left  the  dungeon  they  proclaimed  aloud  that  they  were  ser 
vants  of  Christ. 


208  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

"  Then  the  governor,  furious,  commanded  that  they  should  be  burned, 
and  that  Dorothea  should  witness  their  torments.  And  she  stood  by, 
bravely  encouraging  them,  and  saying,  '  O  my  sisters,  fear  not !  suffer 
to  the  end!  for  these  transient  pangs  shall  be  followed  by  the  joys  of 
eternal  life  ! '  Thus  they  died  :  and  Dorothea  herself  was  condemned 
to  be  tortured  cruelly,  and  then  beheaded.  The  first  part  of  her  sen 
tence  she  endured  with  invincible  fortitude.  She  was  then  led  forth 
to  death  ;  and,  as  she  went,  a  young  man,  a  lawyer  of  the  city,  named 
Theophilus,  who  had  been  present  when  she  was  first  brought  before 
the  governor,  called  to  her  mockingly,  '  Ha !  fair  maiden,  goest  thou 
to  join  thy  bridegroom  ?  Send  me,  I  pray  thee,  of  the  fruits  and 
flowers  of  that  same  garden  of  which  thou  hast  spoken :  I  would  fain 
taste  of  them  ! '  And  Dorothea,  looking  on  him,  inclined  her  head 
with  a  gentle  smile,  and  said,  '  Thy  request,  O  Theopliilus,  is  granted.' 
Whereat  he  laughed  aloud  with  his  companions ;  but  she  went  on 
cheerfully  to  death. 

"  When  she  came  to  the  place  of  execution,  she  knelt  down  and 
prayed  ;  and  suddenly  appeared  at  her  side  a  beautiful  boy,  with  hair 
bright  as  sunbeams — 

'  A  smooth-faced,  glorious  thing, 

With  thousand  blessings  dancing  in  his  eyes.' 

In  his  hand  he  held  a  basket  containing  three  apples,  and  three  fresh- 
gathered  and  fragrant  roses.  She  said  to  him,  '  Carry  these  to  Theo 
philus,  say  that  Dorothea  hath  sent  them,  and  that  I  go  before  him  to 
the  garden  whence  they  came,  and  await  him  there.'  With  these 
words  she  bent  her  neck,  and  received  the  death-stroke. 

"  Meantime  the  angel  (for  it  was  an  angel)  went  to  seek  Theophilus, 
and  found  him  still  laughing  in  merry  mood  over  the  idea  of  the  prom 
ised  gift.  The  angel  placed  before  him  the  basket  of  celestial  fruit 
and  flowers,  saying,  '  Dorothea  sends  thee  this,'  and  vanished. .  What 
words  can  express  the  wonder  of  Theophilus  ?  Struck  by  the  prodigy 
operated  in  his  favour,  his  heart  melted  within  him  ;  he  tasted  of  the 
celestial  fruit,  and  a  new  life  was  his  ;  he  proclaimed  himself  a  servant 
of  Christ,  and,  following  the  example  of  Dorothea,  suffered  .with  like 
constancy  in  the  cause  of  truth,  and  obtained  the  crown  of  martyrdom." 

We  have  chosen  this  legend  just  because  it  is  in  itself  as  super 
stitious  and  fantastic  as  any  in  the  book.  We  happen  to  hold 
the  dream  of "  The  Spiritual  Marriage,"  as  there  set  forth,  in 
especial  abhorrence,  and  we  have  no  doubt  Mrs.  Jameson  does 
so  also.  We  are  well  aware  of  the  pernicious  effect  which  this 
doctrine  has  exercised  on  matrimonial  purity  among  the  southern 
nations ;  that  by  making  chastity  synonymous  with  celibacy,  it 
degraded  married  faithfulness  into  a  restriction  which  there  were 
penalties  for  breaking,  but  no  rewards  for  keeping.  We  see 
clearly  enough  the  cowardice,  the  short-sightedness,  of  fancying 
that  man  can  ensure  the  safety  of  bis  soul  by  fleeing  from  the 
world ; — in  plain  English,  deserting  the  post  to  which  God  has 
called  him,  like  the  monks  and  nuns  of  old.  We  believe  that 


THE  POETRY  OF  SACRED  AND  LEGENDARY  ART.   209 

the  numbers  of  the  early  martyrs  have  been  exaggerated.  We 
believe  they  were  like  ourselves,  imperfect  and  inconsistent  human 
beings ;  that,  on  the  showing  of  the  legends  and  fathers  them 
selves,  their  testimony  for  the  truth  was  too  often  impaired  by 
superstition,  fanaticism,  or  passion.  But  granting  all  this,  we 
must  still  say,  in  the  words  of  one  who  cannot  be  suspected  of 
Komanizing,  the  great  Dr.  Arnold: — 

"  Divide  the  sum  total  of  reported  martyrs  by  twenty  ;  by  fifty,  if 
you  will ;  after  all,  you  have  a  number  of  persons  of  all  ages  and 
sexes  suffering  cruel  torments  and  deaths  for  conscience  sake,  and  for 
Christ's ;  and  by  their  sufferings,  manifestly  with  God's  blessing,  en 
suring  the  triumph  of  Christ's  Gospel.  Neither  do  I  think  that  we 
consider  the  excellence  of  this  martyr  spirit  half  enough." 

Indeed  we  do  not.  Let  all  the  abatements  mentioned  above, 
and  more,  be  granted  ;  yet  even  then,  when  we  remember  that 
the  world  from  which  Jerome  or  Anthony  fled  was  worse  than 
that  denounced  by  Juvenal  and  Persius, — that  the  nuptials  which, 
as  legends  say,  were  often  offered  the  virgin  martyrs  as  alter 
natives  for  death,  were  such  as  employed  the  foul  pens  of  Petro- 
nius  and  Martial, — that  the  tyrants  whom  they  spurned  were  such 
as  live  in  the  pages  of  Suetonius, — that  the  gods  whom  they 
were  commanded  to  worship,  the  rites  in  which  they  were  to 
join,  where  those  over  which  Ovid  and  Apuleius  had  gloated, 
which  Lucian  had  held  up  to  the  contempt  of  heathendom  itself — 
that  the  tortures  which  they  preferred  to  apostasy  and  to  foul 
crimes  were,  by  the  confessions  of  the  heathens  themselves,  too 
horrible  for  pen  to  tell, — it  does  raise  a  flush  of  indignation  to 
hear  some  sleek  bigot-skeptic,  bred  up  in  the  safety  and  luxury 
of  modern  England  among  Habeas  Corpus  Acts  and  endowed 
churches,,  trying  from  his  warm  fire-side  to  sneer  away  the  awful 
responsibilities  and  the  heroic  fortitude  of  valiant  men  and  tender 
girls,  to  whose  piety  and  courage  he  owes  the  very  enlighten 
ment,  the  very  civilization,  of  which  he  boasts. 

It  is  an  error,  doubtless,  and  a  fearful  one,  to  worship  even 
such  as  them.  But  the  error,  when  it  arose,  was  at  worst  the 
caricature  of  a  blessed  truth.  Even  for  the  sinful,  surely  it  was 
better  to  admire  holiness  than  to  worship  their  own  sin.  Shame 
on  those  who,  calling  themselves  Christians,  repine  that  a  Cecilia 
or  a  Magdalen  replaced  an  Isis  and  a  Venus,  who  can  fancy  that 
they  are  serving  Protestantism  by  tracing  malevolent  likenesses 
between  even  the  idolatry  of  a  saint  and  the  idolatry  of  a  devil ! 
True,  there  was  idolatry  in  both,  as  gross  in  one  as  the  other. 
And  what  wonder  ?  What  wonder  if,  amid  a  world  of  courte 
zans,  the  nun  was  worshipped  ?  At  least  God  allowed  it ;  and 
will  men  be  wiser  than  God  ?  "  The  times  of  that  ignorance  He 
winked  at."  The  lie  that  was  in  it  He  did  not  interfere  to  punish. 


210  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

He  did  more ;  he  let  it  work  out,  as  all  lies  will,  their  own  pun 
ishment.  We  may  see  that  in  the  miserable  century  which  pre 
ceded  the  glorious  Reformation ;  we  may  see  it  in  the  present 
state  of  Spain  and  Italy.  The  crust  of  lies,  we  say,  punished 
itself;  to  the  germ  of  truth  within  it  we  partly  owe  that  we  are 
Christian  men  this  day. 

But  granting,  or  rather  boldly  asserting  all  this,  and  smiling 
as  much  as  we  choose  at  the  tale  of  St.  Dorothea's  celestial  bas 
ket,  is  it  not  absolutely,  and  in  spite  of  all,  an  exquisite  story  ? 
Is  it  likely  to  make  people  better  or  worse  ?  We  might  believe 
the  whole  of  it,  and  yet  we  need  not,  therefore,  turn  idolaters  and 
worship  sweet  Dorothea  for  a  goddess.  But  if,  as  we  trust  in 
God  is  the  case,  we  are  too  wise  to  believe  it  all — if  even  we  see 
no  reason  (and  there  is  not  much)  for  believing  one  single  word 
of  it — yet  still  we  ask,  is  it  not  an  exquisite  story  ?  Is  there  not 
heroism  in  it  greater  than  of  all  the  Ajaxes  and  Achilles  who 
ever  blustered  on  this  earth  ?  Is  there  not  power  greater  than 
of  kings — God's  strength  made  perfect  in  woman's  weakness  ? 
Tender  forgiveness,  the  Saviour's  own  likeness  ;  glimpses,  bril 
liant  and  true  at  the  core,  however  distorted  and  miscolored,  of 
that  spiritnal  world  where  the  wicked  cease  from  troubling, 
where  the  meek  alone  shall  inherit  the  earth,  where,  as  Protes 
tants  too  believe,  all  that  is  spotless  and  beautiful  in  nature  as 
well  as  in  man  shall  bloom  for  ever  perfect  ? 

It  is  especially  in  her  descriptions  of  paintings  that  Mrs. 
Jameson's  great  talents  are  displayed.  Nowhere  do  we  recollect 
criticisms  more  genial,  brilliant,  picturesque,  than  those  which  are 
scattered  through  these  pages.  Often  they  have  deeper  merits, 
and  descend  to  those  fundamental  laws  of  beauty  and  of  religion 
by  which  all  Christian  art  must  ultimately  be  tested.  Mrs. 
Jameson  has  certainly  a  powerful  inductive  faculty  ;  she  com 
prehends  at  once  the  idea  *  and  central  law  of  a  work  of  art,  and 
sketches  it  in  a  few  vivid  and  masterly  touches  ;  and  really,  to 
use  a  hack  quotation  honestly  for  once,  "  in  thoughts  which 

*  We  are  sorry  to  see,  however,  that  Mrs.  Jameson  has  been  so  far  untrue 
to  her  own  faculty  as  to  join  in  the  common  mistake  of  naming  Raphael's  well- 
known  cartoon  at  Hampton  Court,  "  Elymas  the  Sorcerer  struck  Blind."  On 
the  supposition  that  this  is  its  subject,  its  method  of  arrangement  is  quite  un 
worthy  of  the  rest,  as  the  action  would  be  split  into  the  opposite  corner?  of  the 
picture,  and  the  post  of  honour  in  the  centre  occupied  by  a  figure  of  secondary 
importance;  besides,  the  picture  would  lose  its  significance  as  one  of  this  great 
series  on  "  Religious  Conviction  and  Conversion."  But,  strange  to  say,  Raphael 
has  all  the  while  especially  guarded  against  this  very  error,  by  labelling  the 
picture  with  a  description  of  its  subject.  Directly  under  the  central  figure  is 
written,  "  Sergius  Paulus,  Proconsul,  embraces  the  Christian  faith  at  the 
preaching  of  Paul."  Taking  which  simple  hint,  and  looking  at  the  face  of 
the  proconsul,  (himself  a  miracle  of  psychology,)  as  the  centre  to  which  all  is 
to  be  referred,  the  whole  composition,  down  to  the  minutest  details,  arranges 
itself  at  once  in  that  marvellous  unity,  which  is  Raphael's  especial  glory. 


THE  POETRY  OF  SACRED  AND  LEGENDARY  ART.   211 

breathe,  and  words  which  burn."  As  an  instance,  we  must  be 
allowed  to  quote  at  length  this  charming  passage  on  angel  paint 
ings,  so  valuable  does  it  seem  not  only  as  information,  but  as  a 
specimen  of  what  criticism  should  be  : — 

"  On  the  revival  of  art,  we  find  tlie  Byzantine  idea  of  angels  every 
where  prevailing.  The  angels  in  Cimabue's  famous  '  Virgin  and 
Child  enthroned,'  are  grand  creatures,  rather  stern  ;  but  this  arose,  I 
think,  from  his  inability  to  express  beauty.  The  colossal  angels  at 
Assissi,  solemn  sceptred  kingly  forms,  all  alike  in  action  and  attitude, 
appeared  to  me  magnificent. 

"  In  the  angels  of  Giotto  we  see  the  commencement  of  a  softer  grace 
and  a  purer  taste,  farther  developed  by  some  of  his  scholars.  Benozzo 
Gozzoli  and  Orcagna  have  left  in  the  Campo  Santo  examples  of  the 
most  graceful  and  fanciful  treatment.  Of  Benozzo's  angels  in  the 
Biccardi  palace  I  have  spoken  at  length.  His  master,  Angelico, 
(worthy  the  name  !)  never  reached  the  same  power  of  expressing  the 
rapturous  rejoicing  of  celestial  beings,  but  his  conception  of  the  angelic 
nature  remains  unapproached,  unapproachable ;  it  is  only  his,  for  it  was 
the  gentle,  passionless,  refined  nature  of  the  recluse  which  stamped 
itself  there.  Angelico's  angels  are  unearthly,  not  so  much  in  form 
as  in  sentiment ;  and  superhuman,  not  in  power  hut  in  purity.  In 
other  hands,  any  imitation  of  his  soft  ethereal  grace  would  become 
feeble  and  insipid.  With  their  long  robes  falling  round  their  feet,  and 
drooping  many-coloured  wings,  they  seem  not  to  fly  or  to  walk,  but  to 
float  along  '  smooth  sliding  without  step.'  Blessed,  blessed  creatures ! 
love  us,  only  love  us ;  for  we  dare  not  task  your  soft,  serene  beatitude, 
by  asking  you  to  help  us ! 

u  There  is  more  sympathy  with  humanity  in  Francia's  angels :  they 
look  as  if  they  could  weep,  as  well  as  love  and  sing. 

*    '        *  *  *  *  *  * 

"  Correggio's  angels  are  grand  and  lovely,  but  they  are  like  children 
enlarged  and  sublimated,  not  like  spirits  taking  the  form  of  children ; 
where  they  smile  it  is  truly,  as  Annibal  Caracci  expresses  it, — con  una 
naturalezza  et  simplicitd  die  innamora  e  sforza  a  ridere  con  loro ;  but 
the  smile  in  many  of  Correggio's  angel  heads  has  something  sublime 
and  spiritual,  as  well  as  simple  and  natural. 

"  And  Titian's  angels  impress  me  in  a  similar  manner — I  mean  those 
in  the  Glorious  Assumption  at  Venice — with  their  childish  forms  and 
features,  but  an  expression  caught  from  beholding  the  face  of  'our 
Father  that  is  in  heaven  : '  it  is  glorified  infancy.  I  remember  stand 
ing  before  this  picture,  contemplating  those  lovely  spirits  one  after 
another,  until  a  thrill  came  over  me  like  that  which  I  felt  when  Men 
delssohn  played  the  organ, — I  became  music  while  I  listened.  The 
face  of  one  of  those  angels  is  to  the  face  of  a  child  just  what  that  of 
the  Virgin  in  the  same  picture  is  compared  with  the  fairest  of  the 
daughters  of  earth  :  it  is  not  here  superiority  of  beauty,  but  mind,  and 
/nusic,  and  love  kneaded,  as  it  were,  into  form  and  colour. 

^  "  But  Raphael,  excelling  in  all  things,  is  here  excellent  above  all  : 
his  angels  combine,  in  a  higher  degree  than  any  other,  the  various 
faculties  and  attributes  in  which  the  fancy  loves  to  clothe  these  pure, 


212  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

immortal,  beatified  creatures.  The  angels  of  Giotto,  of  Benozzo,  of 
Fiesole,  are,  if  not  female,  feminine  ;  those  of  Filippo  Lippi,  and  of 
Andrea,  masculine  :  but  you  cannot  say  of  those  of  Raphael  that  they 
are  masculine  or  feminine.  The  idea  of  sex  is  wholly  lost  in  the  blend 
ing  of  power,  intelligence,  and  grace.  In  his  earlier  pictures,  grace  is 
the  predominant  characteristic,  as  in  the  dancing  and  singing  angels 
in  his  Coronation  of  the  Virgin.  In  his  later  pictures  the  sentiment 
in  his  ministering  angels  is  more  spiritual,  more  dignified.  As  a  per 
fect  example  of  grand  and  poetical  feeling,  I  may  cite  the  angels  as 
'  Regents  of  the  Planets,'  in  the  Capella  Chigiana.  The  cupola  repre 
sents  in  a  circle  the  creation  of  the  solar  'system,  according  to  the 
theological  and  astronomical  (or  rather  astrological)  notions  which 
then  prevailed — a  hundred  years  before  '  the  starry  Galileo  and  his 
woes.'  In  the  centre  is  the  Creator  ;  around,  in  eight  compartments, 
we  have,  first  the  angel  of  the  celestial  sphere,  who  seems  to  be  listen 
ing  to  the  divine  mandate, — '  Let  there  be  lights  in  the  firmament  of 
heaven  ; '  then  follow,  in  their  order,  the  Sun,  the  Moon,  Mercury, 
Venus,  Mars,  Jupiter,  and  Saturn.  The  name  of  each  planet  is  ex 
pressed  by  its  mythological  representative;  the  Sun  by  Apollo,  the 
Moon  by  Diana :  and  over  each  presides  a  grand  colossal  winged  spirit, 
seated  or  reclining  on  a  portion  of  the  zodiac  as  on  a  throne.  I  have 
selected  two  angels  to  give  an  idea  of  this  peculiar  and  poetical  treat 
ment.  The  union  of  the  theological  and  the  mythological  attributes  is 
in  the  classical  taste  of  the  time,  and  quite  Miltonic.  In  Raphael's  child- 
angels,  the  expression  of  power  and  intelligence,  as  well  as  innocence, 
is  quite  wonderful ;  for  instance,  look  at  the  two  angel-boys  in  the  Dres 
den  Madonna  di  San  Sisto,  and  the  angels,  or  celestial  genii,  who  bear 
along  the  Almighty  when  he  appears  to  Noah.  No  one  has  expressed 
like  Raphael  the  action  of  flight,  except  perhaps  Rembrandt.  The 
angel  who  descends  to  crown  Santa  Felicita  cleaves  the  air  with  the 
action  of  a  swallow  ;  and  the  angel  in  Rembrandt's  Tobit  soars  like  a 
lark  with  upward  motion,  spurning  the  earth. 

"  Michael  Angelo  rarely  gave  wings  to  his  angels;  I  scarcely  recollect 
an  instance,  except  the  angel  in  the  Annunciation  :  and  his  exagger 
ated  human  forms,  his  colossal  creatures,  in  which  the  idea  of  power  is 
conveyed  through  attitude  and  muscular  action,  are,  to  my  taste,  worse 
than  unpleasing.  My  admiration  for  this  wonderful  man  is  so  pro 
found  that  I  can  afford  to  say  this.  His  angels  are  superhuman,  but 
hardly  angelic  :  and  while  in  Raphael's  angels  we  do  not  feel  the 
want  of  wings,  \ve  feel  while  looking  at  those  of  Michael  Angelo  that 
not  even  the  '  sail-broad  vans '  with  which  Satan  laboured  through  the 
surging  abyss  of  chaos  coujd  suffice  to  lift  those  Titantic  forms  from, 
earth,  and  sustain  them  in  mid-air.  The  group  of  angels  over  the 
Last  Judgment,  flinging  their  mighty  limbs  about,  and  those  that  sur 
round  the  descending  figure  of  Christ  in  the  conversion  of  St.  Paul, 
may  be  referred  to  here  as  characteristic  examples.  The  angels, 
blowing  their  trumpets,  puff  and  strain  like  so  many  troopers.  Surely 
this  is  not  angelic  :  there  may  be  power,  great,  imaginative,  and  artis 
tic  power,  exhibited  in  the  conception  of  form,  but  in  the  beings  them 
selves  there  is  more  of  effort  than  of  power :  serenity,  tranquillity, 
beatitude,  ethereal  purity,  spiritual  grace,  are  out  of  the  question." 


THE  POETRY  OF  SACRED  AND  LEGENDARY  ART.   213 

In  this  passage  we  may  remark  an  excellence  in  Mrs.  Jame 
son's  mode  of  thought  which  has  become  lately  somewhat  rare. 
We  mean  a  freedom  from  that  bigoted  and  fantastic  habit  of 
mind  which  leads  nowadays  the  worshippers  of  high  art  to  exalt 
the  early  schools  to  the  disadvantage  of  all  others,  and  to  talk  as 
if  Christian  painting  had  expired  with  Perugino.  We  were 
much  struck  with  our  authoress's  power  of  finding  spiritual  truth 
and  beauty  in  Titian's  "Assumption,"  one  of  the  very  pictures  in 
which  the  "  high  art"  party  are  wont  to  see  nothing  but  "  coarse 
ness  "  and  "  earthliness  "  of  conception.  She,  having,  we  suppose, 
a  more  acute  as  well  as  a  more  healthy  eye  for  the  beautiful  and 
the  spiritual,  and,  therefore,  able  to  perceive  its  slightest  traces 
wherever  they  exist,  sees  in  those  "  earthly  "  faces  of  the  great 
masters,  "  an  expression  caught  from  beholding  the  face  of  our 
Father  that  is  in  heaven."  The  face  of  one  of  those  "  angels," 
she  continues,  "  is  to  the  face  of  a  child  just  what  that  of  the 
Virgin  in  the  same  picture  is  compared  with  the  fairest  of  the 
daughters  of  earth  :  it  is  not  here  superiority  of  beauty,  but  mind, 
and  music,  and  love  kneaded,  as  it  were,  into  form  and  colour." 

Mrs.  Jameson  acknowledges  her  great  obligations  to  M.  Rio  ; 
and  all  students  of  art  must  be  thankful  to  him  for  the  taste, 
learning,  and  earnest  religious  feeling  which  he  had  expended 
on  the  history  of  the  earlier  schools  of  painting.  An  honest  man, 
doubtless,  he  is ;  but  it  does  not  follow,  alas !  in  this  piecemeal 
world,  that  he  should  write  an  honest  book.  And  his  bigotry 
stands  in  painful  contrast  to  the  genial  and  comprehensive  spirit 
by  which  Mrs.  Jameson  seems  able  to  appreciate  the  specific 
beauties  of  all  schools  and  masters.  M.  Rio's  theory  (and  he  is 
the  spokesman  of  a  large  party)  is,  unless  we  much  misjudge 
him,  this, — that  the  arite-RafFaellic  is  the  only  Christian  art; 
and  that  all  the  excellences  of  these  early  painters  came  from 
their  Romanism ;  all  their  faults  from  his  two  great  bugbears,— 
Byzantinism  and  Paganism.  In  his  eyes,  the  Byzantine  idea  of 
art  was  Manichean  ;  in  which  we  fully  coincide,  but  add,  that 
the  idea  of  the  early  Italian  painters  was  almost  equally  so ;  and 
that  almost  all  in  them  that  was  not  Manichean  they  owe  not  to 
their  Romanism  or  their  Asceticism,  but  to  their  healthy  lay 
man's  common  sense,  and  to  the  influence  of  that  very  classical 
art  which  they  are  said  to  have  been  pious  enough  to  despise. 
Bigoted  and  ascetic  Romanists  have  been,  in  all  ages,  in  a  hurry 
to  call  people  Manicheans,  all  the  more  fiercely  because  their 
own  consciences  must  have  hinted  to  them  that  they  were  some 
what  Manichean  themselves.  When  a  man  suspects  his  own 
honesty,  he  is,  of  course,  inclined  to  prove  himself  blameless  by 
shouting  the  loudest  against  the  dishonesty  of  others.  Now  M. 


214  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

Rio  sees  clearly  and  philosophically  enough  what  is  the  root  of 
Manicheanism, — the  denial  that  that  which  is  natural,  beautiful, 
human,  belongs  to  God.  He  imputes  it  justly  to  those  Byzantine 
artists  who  fancied  it  carnal  to  attribute  beauty  to  the  Saviour  or 
to  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  tried  to  prove  their  own  spirituality  by 
representing  their  sacred  personages  in  the  extreme  of  ugliness 
and  emaciation,  though  some  of  the  specimens  of  their  painting 
which  Mrs.  Jameson  gives  proves  that  this  abhorrence  of  beauty 
was  not  so  universal  as  M.  Rio  would  have  us  believe.  We  agree 
with  him  that  this  absurdity  was  learned  from  them  by  earlier 
and  semi-barbarous  Italian  artists,  that  these  latter  rapidly  es 
caped  from  it,  and  began  rightly  to  embody  their  conceptions  in 
beautiful  forms ;  and  yet  we  must  urge  against  them,  too,  the 
charge  of  Manicheanism,  and  of  a  spiritual  eclecticism  also,  far 
deeper  and  more  pernicious  than  the  mere  outward  eclecticism 
of  manner  which  has  drawn  down  hard  names  on  the  school  of 
the  Caracci. 

For  an  eclectic,  if  it  mean  any  thing,  means  this, — one  who, 
in  any  branch  of  art  or  science,  refuses  to  acknowledge  Bacon's 
great  law,  "  That  Nature  is  only  conquered  by  obeying  her  ; " 
who  will  not  take  a  full  and  reverent  view  of  the  whole  mass  of 
facts  with  which  he  has  to  deal,  and  from  them  deducing  the 
fundamental  laws  of  his  subject,  obey  them  whithersoever  they 
may  lead ;  but  who  picks  and  chooses  out  of  them  just  so  many 
as  may  be  pleasant  to  his  private  taste,  and  then  constructs  a 
partial  system  which  differs  from  the  essential  ideas  of  Nature, 
in  proportion  to  the  number  of  fa^ts  which  he  has  determined  to 
discard.  And  such  a  course  was  pursued  in  art  by  the  ascetic 
painters  between  the  time  of  Giotte  and  Raffaelle.  Their  idea 
of  beauty  was  a  partial  and  a  Manichean  one ;  in  their  adoration 
for  a  fictitious  "  angelic  nature,"  made  up  from  all  which  is  nega 
tive  in  humanity,  they  were  prone  to  despise  all  by  which  man 
is  brought  in  contact  with  this  earth, — the  beauties  of  sex,  of 
strength,  of  activity,  of  grandeur  of  form ;  all  that  is,  in  which 
Greek  art  excels  :  their  ideal  of  beauty  was  altogether  effeminate. 
They  prudishly  despised  the  anatomic  study  of  the  human  figure, 
of  landscape  and  chiaroscuro.  Spiritual  expression  with  them 
was  everything ;  but  it  was  only  the  expression  of  the  passive 
spiritual  faculties,  of  innocence,  devotion,  meekness,  resignation  ; 
all  good,  but  not  the  whole  of  humanity.  Not  that  they  could 
be  quite  consistent  in  their  theory.  They  were  forced  to  paint 
their  very  angels  as  human  beings  ;  and  a  standard  of  human 
beauty  they  had  to  find  somewhere ;  and  they  found  one,  strange 
to  say,  exactly  like  that  of  the  old  Pagan  statues,  and  only  dif 
fering  in  that  ascetic  and  emasculate  tone,  which  was  peculiar 


THE  POETRY  OF  SACRED  AND  LEGENDARY  ART.   215 

to  themselves.  Here  is  a  dilemma  which  the  worshippers  of 
high  art  have  slurred  over.  Where  did  Angelico  da  Fiesole  get 
the  idea  of  beauty  which  dictated  his  exquisite  angels  ?  We 
shall  not,  I  suppose,  agree  with  those  who  attribute  it  to  direct 
inspiration,  and  speak  of  it  as  the  reward  of  the  prayer  and 
fasting  by  which  the  good  monk  used  to  prepare  himself  for 
painting.  Must  we  then  confess  that  he  borrowed  his  beauties 
from  the  faces  of  the  prettiest  nuns  with  whom  he  was  acquainted? 
That  would  be  sad  naturalism ;  and  sad  eclecticism,  too,  consid 
ering  that  he  must  have  seen  among  his  Italian  sisters,  a  great 
many  beauties  of  a  very  different  type  from  that  which  he  has 
chosen  to  copy  ;  though,  we  suppose,  of  God's  making  equally 
with  that  of  his  favourite.  Or  did  he,  in  spite  of  himself,  steal 
a  side-glance  now  and  then  at  some  of  the  unrivalled  antique 
statues  of  his  country,  and  copy  on  the  sly  any  feature  or  pro 
portion  in  them  which  was  emasculate  enough  to  be  worked  into 
his  pictures  ?  That,  too,  is  likely  enough  ;  nay,  it  is  certain. 
We  are  perfectly  astonished  how  any  draughtsman,  at  least  how 
such  a  critic  as  M.  Rio,  can  look  at  the  early  Italian  painters 
without  tracing  everywhere  in  them  the  classic  touch,  the  pecu 
liar  tendency  to  mathematic  curves  in  the  outlines,  which  is  the 
distinctive  peculiarity  of  Greek  art.  Is  not  Giotto,  the  father  of 
Italian  art,  full  of  it  in  every  line  ?  Is  not  Perugino  ?  Is  not 
the  angel  of  Lorenzo  Credi  in  Mrs.  Jameson's  woodcut  ?  Is  not 
Francia,  except  just  where  he  is  stiff,  and  soft,  and  clumsy  ?  Is 
not  Fra  Angelico  himself?  Is  it  not  just  the  absence  of  this 
Greek  tendency  to  mathematical  forms  in  the  German  painters 
before  Albert  Durer,  which  makes  the  specific  difference,  evi 
dent  to  every  boy,  between  the  drawing  of  the  Teutonic  and 
Italian  schools  ? 

But,  if  so,  what  becomes  of  the  theory  which  calls  Pagan  art 
by  all  manner  of  hard  names  ?  which  dates  the  downfall  of  Chris 
tian  art  from  the  moment  when  painters  first  lent  an  eye  to  its 
pernicious  seductions  ?  How  can  those  escape  the  charge  of 
eclecticism,  who,  without  going  to  the  root-idea  of  Greek  art, 
filched  from  its  outside  just  as  much  as  suited  their  purpose  ? 
And  how,  lastly,  can  M.  Rio's  school  of  critics  escape  the  charge 
of  Manichean  contempt  for  God's  world  and  man,  not  as  ascetics 
have  fancied  him,  but  as  God  has  made  him,  when  they  think 
it  a  sufficient  condemnation  of  a  picture  to  call  it  naturalistic  ; 
when  they  talk  and  act  about  art  as  if  the  domain  of  the  beauti 
ful  were  the  devil's  kingdom,  from  which  some  few  species  of 
form  and  elements  were  to  be  stolen  by  Christian  painters,  and 
twisted  from  their  original  evil  destination  into  the  service  of 
religion  ? 


216  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  owe  much  to  those  early  ascetic  pain 
ters  ;  their  works  are  a  possession  for  ever.  No  future  school 
of  religious  art  will  be  able  to  rise  to  eminence  without  taking 
full  cognizance  of  them,  and  learning  from  them  their  secret. 
They  taught  artists,  and  priests,  and  laymen,  too,  that  beauty  is 
only  worthy  of  admiration  when  it  is  the  outward  sacrament  of 
the  beauty  of  the  soul  within  ;  they  helped  to  deliver  men  from 
that  idolatry  to  merely  animal  strength  and  loveliness  into  which 
they  were  in  danger  of  falling  in  ferocious  ages,  and  among  the 
relics  of  Roman  luxury ;  they  asserted  the  superiority  of  the 
spirit  over  the  flesh  ;  according  to  their  light,  they  were  faithful 
preachers  of  the  great  Christian  truth,  that  devoted  faith,  and  not 
fierce  self-will,  is  man's  glory.  Well  did  their  pictures  tell  to 
brutal  peasant,  and  to  still  more  brutal  warrior,  that  God's  might 
was  best  shown  forth,  not  in  the  elephantine  pride  of  a  Hercules, 
or  the  Titantic  struggles  of  a  Laocoon,  but  in  the  weakness  of 
martyred  women,  and  of  warriors  who  were  content  meekly  to 
endure  shame  and  death,  for  the  sake  of  Him  who  conquered  by 
sufferings,  and  bore  all  human  weaknesses  ;  who  "  was  led  as  a 
lamb  to  the  slaughter,  and,  like  a  sheep  dumb  before  the  shearers, 
opened  not  his  mouth." 

We  must  conclude  with  a  few  words  on  one  point  on  which 
we  differ  somewhat  from  Mrs.  Jameson — the  allegoric  origin  of 
certain  legendary  stories.  She  calls  the  story  of  the  fiend,  under 
the  form  of  a  dragon,  devouring  St.  Margaret,  and  then  bursting 
at  the  sign  of  the  cross  while  the  saint  escaped  unhurt,  "  another 
form  of  the  familiar  allegory — the  power  of  Sin  overcome  by  the 
power  of  the  Cross." 

And  again,  vol.  ii.  p.  4  : — 

"  The  legend  of  St.  George  came  to  us  from  the  East ;  where,  under 
various  forms,  as  Apollo  and  the  Python,  as  Bellerophon  and  the 
ChiniEera,  as  Perseus  and  the  Sea-monster,  we  see  perpetually  recur 
ring  the  mythic  allegory  by  which  was  figured  the  conquest  achieved 
by  beneficent  Power  over  the  tyranny  of  wickedness,  and  which  reap 
pears  in  Christian  art  in  the  legends  of  St.  Michael  and  half  a  hundred 
other  saints." 

To  us  these  stories  seem  to  have  had  by  no  means  an  allegoric, 
but  rather  a  strictly  historic  foundation ;  and  our  reasons  for  this 
opinion  may  possibly  interest  some  readers. 

Allegory,  strictly  so  called,  is  the  offspring  of  an  advanced, 
and  not  of  a  semi-barbarous  state  of  society.  Its  home  is  in  the 
East — not  the  East  of  barbarous  Pontine  countries  peopled  by 
men  of  our  own  race,  where  the  legend  of  St.  George  is  allowed 
to  have  sprung  up,  but  of  the  civilized,  metaphysical,  durk-haired 


THE  POETRY  OF  SACRED  AND  LEGENDARY  ART.   217 

races  of  Egypt,  Syria,  and  Hindostan.  The  "  objectivity "  of 
the  Gothic  mind  has  never  had  any  sympathy  with  it.  The 
Teutonic  races,  like  the  earlier  Greeks,  before  they  were  tinc 
tured  with  Eastern  thought,  had  always  wanted  historic  facts, 
dates,  names,  and  places.  They  even  found  it  necessary  to  im 
port  their  saints ;  to  locate  Mary  Magdalene  at  Marseilles, 
Joseph  of  Arimathea  at  Glastonbury,  the  three  Magi  at  Cologne, 
before  they  could  thoroughly  love  or  understand  them.  Eng 
lishmen  especially  cannot  write  allegories.  John  Bunyan  alone 
succeeded  tolerably,  but  only  because  his  characters  and  language 
were  such  as  he  had  encountered  daily  at  every  fireside  and  in 
every  meeting-house.  But  Spenser  wandered  perpetually  away, 
or  rather,  rose  up  from  his  plan  into  mere  dramatic  narrative. 
His  work  and  other  English  allegories,  are  hardly  allegoric  at 
all,  but  rather  symbolic  ;  spiritual  laws  in  them  are  not  expressed 
by  arbitrary  ciphers,  but  embodied  in  imaginary  examples,  suffi 
ciently  startling  or  simple  to  form  a  plain  key  to  other  and  deeper 
instances  of  the  same  law.  They  are  analogous  to  those  symbolic 
devotional  pictures,  in- which  the  Madonna  and  saints  of  all  ages 
are  grouped  together  with  the  painter's  own  contemporaries — no 
allegories  at  all,  but  a  plain  embodiment  of  a  fact  in  which  the 
artist  believed ;  not  only  "  the  communion  of  all  saints,"  but  also 
their  habit  of  assisting,  often  in  visible,  form,  the  Christians  of  his 
own  time. 

These  distinctions  may  seem  over-subtle,  but  our  meaning  will 
surely  be  plain  to  any  one  who  will  compare  The  Faery  Queen, 
or  The  Legend  of  St.  George,  with  the  Gnostic  or  Hindoo  rev 
eries,  and  the  fantastic  and  truly  Eastern  interpretation  of  Scrip 
ture,  which  the  European  monks  borrowed  from  Egypt.  Our 
opinion  is,  that  in  the  old  legends  the  moral  did  not  create  the 
story,  but  the  story  the  moral ;  and  that  the  story  had  generally 
a  nucleus  of  fact  within  all  its  distortions  and  exaggerations. 
This  holds  good  of  the  Odinic  and  Grecian  myths  ;  all  are  now 
more  or  less  inclined  to  believe  that  the  deities  of  Zeus's  or  Odin's 
dynasties  were  real  conquerors  or  civilizers  of  flesh  and  blood, 
like  the  Manco  Capac  of  the  Peruvians,  and  that  it  was  around 
records  of  their  real  victories  over  barbarous  aborigines,  and  over 
the  brute  powers  of  nature,  that  extravagant  myths  grew  up,  till 
more  civilized  generations  began  to  say, — "  These  tales  must 
have  some  meaning — they  must  be  either  allegories  or  non 
sense  ; "  and  then  fancied,  that  in  the  remaining  thread  of  fact 
they  found  a  clue  to  the  mystic  sense  of  the  whole. 

Such,  we  suspect,  has  been  the  history  of  St.  George  and  the 
Dragon,  as  well  as  of  Apollo  and  the  Python.  It  is  very  hard 
to  have  to  give  up  the  dear  old  dragon  who  haunted  our  nursery 
10 


218  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

dreams,  especially  when  there  is  no  reason  for  it.  We  have  no 
patience  with  antiquaries  who  tell  us  that  the  dragons  who 
guarded  princesses  Avere  merely  "  the  winding  walls  or  moats  of 
their  castles."  What  use,  then,  pray,  was  there  in  the  famous 
nether  garment  with  which  Regnar  Lodbrog  (shaggy-trousers) 
choked  the  dragon  who  guarded  his  lady  love  ?  And  Regnar 
was  a  real  piece  of  flesh  and  blood,  as  King  JElla  and  our  Saxon 
forefathers  found  to  their  cost :  his  awful  death-dirge,  and  the 
effect  which  it  produced,  are  well  known  to  historians.  We  can 
not  give  up  Regnar's  trousers,  for  we  suspect  the  key  to  the 
whole  dragon-question  is  in  the  pocket  of  them. 

Seriously,  Why  should  not  these  dragons  have  been  simply 
what  the  Greek  word  dragon  means — what  the  earliest  romances, 
the  Norse  myths,  and  the  superstitions  of  the  peasantry  in  many 
parts  of  England  to  this  day,  assert  them  to  have  been — "  mighty 
worms,"  huge  snakes  ?  All  will  agree  that  the  Python,  the  rep 
resentative  in  the  old  world  of  the  "  Boa  Constrictor  "  of  the 
new,  was  common  in  the  Homeric  age,  if  not  later,  both  in 
Greece  and  in  Italy.  It  existed  on  the  opposite  coast  of  Africa 
(where  it  is  now  extinct)  in  the  time  of  Regulus ;  we  believe, 
from  the  traditions  of  all  nations,  that  it  existed  to  a  far  later 
date  in  more  remote  and  barbarous  parts  of  Europe.  There  is 
every  reason  to  suppose  that  it  still  lingered  in  England  after  the 
invasion  of  the  Cymri — say  not  earlier  than  B.  c.  600 — for  it  was 
among  them  an  object  of  worship ;  and  we  question  whether 
they  would  have  been  likely  to  have  adored  a  foreign  animal, 
and,  as  at  Abury,  built  enormous  temples  in  imitation  of  its 
windings,  and  called  them  by  its  name. 

The  only  answer  to  these  traditions  has  as  yet  been,  that  no 
reptile  of  that  bulk  is  known  in  cold  climates.  Yet  the  Python 
still  lingers  in  the  Hungarian  marshes.  Only  two  years  ago  a 
huge  snake,  as  large  as  the  Pythons  of  Hindostan,  spread  havoc 
among  the  flocks  and  terror  among  the  peasantry.  Had  it  been 
Ariosto's  "  Ore,"  an  a  priori  argument  from  science  would  have 
had  weight.  A  marsupiate  sea-monster  is  horribly  unorthodox ; 
and  the  dragon,  too,  has  doubtless  been  made  a  monster  of,  but 
most  unjustly ;  his  legs  have  been  patched  on  by  crocodile-slay 
ing  crusaders,  while  his  wings — where  did  they  come  from? 
From  the  traditions  of  "  flying  serpents,"  which  have  so  strangely 
liuunted  the  deserts  of  Upper  Egypt  from  the  time  of  the  old 
Hebrew  prophets,  and  which  may  not,  after  all,  be  such  lies  as 
folk  fancy.  Oh  how  scientific  prigs  shook  with  laughter  at  the 
notion  of  a  flying  dragon  !  till  one  day  geology  revealed  to  them, 
in  the  Pterodactylus,  that  a  real  flying  dragon,  on  the  model  of 
Carlo  Crivelli's  in  Mrs.  Jameson's  book,  with  wings  before  and 


THE  POETRY  OF  SACRED  AND  LEGENDARY  ART.   219 

legs  behind,  only  more  monstrous  than  that,  and  than  all  the 
dreams  of  Seba  and  Aldrovandus,  (though  some  of  theirs,  to  be 
sure,  have  seven  heads,)  got  its  living  once  on  a  time  in  this  very 
island  of  England  !  But  such  is  the  way  of  this  wise  world ! 
When  Le  Vaillant,  in  the  last  century,  assured  the  Parisians 
that  he  had  shot  a  giraffe  at  the  Cape,  he  was  politely  informed 
that  the  giraffe  was  fabulous,  extinct, — in  short,  that  he  lied  ;  and 
now,  behold !  this  very  year  the  respectable  old  unicorn  (and 
good  Tories  ought  to  rejoice  to  hear  it)  has  been  discovered  at 
last  by  a  German  naturalist,  Von  Miiller,  in  Abyssinia,  just 
where  our  fathers  told  us  to  look  for  it !  And  why  should  we  not 
find  the  flying  serpent,  too  ?  The  interior  of  Africa  is  as  yet  an 
unknown  world  of  wonders.  If  half  the  money  had  been  spent 
on  exploration  there  which  has  gone  on  increasing  the  horrors  of 
the  slave-trade,  at  the  price  of  good  English  blood,  we  might 
have  discovered — for  aught  we  know,  the  descendants  of  the 
very  satyr  who  chatted  with  St.  Anthony ! 

No  doubt  the  discovery  of  huge  fossil  animals,  as  Mrs. 
Jameson  says,  on  the  high  authority  of  Professor  Owen,  may 
have  modified  our  ancestors'  notions  of  dragons  ;  but  in  the  old 
serpent  worship  we  believe  the  real  explanation  of  these  stories 
is  to  be  found.  There  is  no  doubt  that  human  victims,  and  even 
young  maidens,  were  offered  to  these  snake  gods ;  even  the 
sunny  mythology  of  Greece  retains  horrible  traces  of  such  cus 
toms,  which  lingered  in  Arcadia,  the  mountain-fastness  of  the 
older  and  conquered  race.  Similar  cruelties  existed  among  the 
Mexicans  ;  and  there  are  but  too  many  traces  of  it  throughout 
the  history  of  heathendom. 

And  the  same  superstition  may,  as  the  legends  assert,  have 
lingered  on,  or  been,  at  least,  revived  during  the  later  ages  of  the 
empire,  in  remote  provinces,  left  in  their  primeval  barbarism,  at 
the  same  time  that  they  were  brutalized  by  the  fiendish  exhibi 
tions  of  the  Circus  and  persecutions  of  the  Christians,  which  the 
Roman  governors  found  it  their  interest  to  introduce  everywhere. 
Thus  the  serpent  became  naturally  regarded  as  the  manifestation 
of  the  evil  spirit  by  Christians  as  well  as  by  the  old  Hebrews  ; 
thus,  also,  it  became  the  presiding  genius  of  the  malaria  and  fever, 
which  arose  from  the  fens  haunted  by  it — a  superstition  which 
gave  rise  to  the  theory  that  the  tales  of  Hercules,  and  the  Hydra, 
Apollo  and  the  mud-Python,  St.  George  and  the  Dragon,  were 
sanitary-reform  allegories,  and  the  monsters  whose  poisonous 
breath  destroy  cattle  and  young  maidens  only  typhus  and  con 
sumption.  We  see  no  reason  why  early  Christian  heroes  should 
not  have  actually  met  with  such  snake  gods,  and  felt  themselves 
bound,  like  Southey's  Madoc,  or  Daniel  in  the  old  rabbinical  story, 


220  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

whose  truth  has  never  been  disproved,  to  destroy  the  monsters  at 
all  risk.  And  we  doubt  not  that  their  righteous  daring  would 
have  been  crowned  with  victory ;  and  that  on  such  events  were 
gradually  built  up  the  dragon-slaying  legends,  which  charmed  all 
Europe,  and  grew  in  extravagances  and  absurdities,  till  they 
began  to  degenerate  into  the  bombast  of  the  Seven  Champions, 
and  expired  in  the  immortal  ballad  of  the  Dragon  of  Wantley,  in 
which  More  of  More  Hall,  on  the  morning  of  his  battle  with  the 
monster,  invoked  the  saints  no  more,  but 

To  make  him  strong  and  mighty 

He  drank  by  the  tale 

Six  pots  of  ale, 
And  a  quart  of  aqua-vitae. 

So  ended  the  sublime  sport  of  dragon-slaying.  Its  only  rem 
nant  may  now  be  seen  in  Hindostan,  where  some  sacre'd  alligator, 
for  years  the  tenant  of  a  tank  or  moat,  and  piously  allowed  to 
devour  at  his  will  the  washerwomen  and  girls  who  fetch  water, 
expiates  his  murders,  not  on  the  point  of  saintly  lance,  but  in 
our  stupid  practical  English  way,  by  the  rifle-bullet  of  some  sub 
altern  lounging  in  the  barrack  window,  who  is  suddenly  awakened 
from  tobacco  and  vacuity  by  the  reflection, — "It's  a  cursed 
shame  that  that  big  fellow  should  eat  up  all  the  pretty  girls  !  n 


NORTH  DEVON.  221 


NORTH   DEVON. 

[Eraser's  Magazine.  \ 
CHAPTER  I. 

NORTH     DEVON    AS     IT     IS     NOT. 

IT  has  long  seemed  to  us  most  marvellous,  that  the  beauties  of 
this  remote  district  have  as  yet  called  out  the  talents  of  no  good 
artist  or  poet.  Strange  that  fifty  miles  of  coast,  from  Minehead 
to  Tintagel,  combining  every  variety  of  beauty,  from  the  softest 
to  the  most  savage — the  fauna  and  flora  of  which,  both  by  land 
and  sea,  are  two  of  the  richest  in  curious  and  nearly  extirpated 
species  which  any  part  of  England  possesses ;  inhabited  by  a  • 
race  of  people  peculiarly  remarkable,  both  in  physical  and  intel 
lectual  development ;  rich  in  legends,  romances,  and  superstitions 
of  every  kind,  still  recent  and  living  in  the  belief  of  the  inhabit 
ants, — most  strange  is  it  that  such  a  country  should  still  remain 
dumb,  illustrated  by  nothing  better,  as  far  as  we  have  seen,  than  a 
few  paltry,  incorrect  lithographs,  and  sung  in  no  worthier  strains 
than  those  of  Mr.  Bamfield's  llfracombe  Guide,  a  very  faithful 
and  well-stuffed  half-crown's  worth  no  doubt,  but  of  the  "  hod- 
carrying"  and  not  the  "  architectural"  kind. 

It  was,  therefore,  with  hope  and  pleasure  that  we  saw 
announced  in  the  publisher's  list  a  book  called  Exmoor,  or  the 
Footsteps  of  St.  Hubert  in  the  West.  "  Now,"  thought  we,  "  the 
old  county  has  found  a  voice  at  last,"  Our  half-enlightened  cock 
ney  public,  who  follow  each  other,  summer  after  summer,  artists 
and  tourists,  reading  parties  and  idling  parties,  like  sheep  after 
the  bellwether,  through  the  accredited  gaps,  along  the  accredited 
trackways,  sheltering  themselves  at  night  only  under  the  accredited 
furze-bushes,  though  there  may  be  hundreds  of  taller  and  warmer 
ones  around  them,  will  hear,  for  once  in  their  lives,  of  this  western 
garden  of  the  Hesperides,  as  yet  visited  by  hardly  any  townsfolk, 

Exmoor ;  or,  the  Footsteps  of  St.  Hubert  in  the  West.    By  H.  BYNG  HALL,  Esq. 


222  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

except  the  good  people  of  Bristol,  who  seem  to  keep  it  all  a 
secret,  as  the  Phoenicians  did  their  tin  islands,  for  their  own  pri 
vate  behoof. 

Full  of  faith,  therefore,  -in  the  subject,  and  full  of  hope  for 
the  author,  we  opened  and  tried  to  read,  and  found,  not  a  mere 
sporting-book,  but,  according  to  our  humble  judgment,  more — a 
very  stupid  and  vulgar  sporting-book. 

Now,  we  do  not  object  to  sporting-books  in  general,  least  of  all 
to  one  on  Exmoor.  No  place  in  England  more  worthy  of  one. 
No  place  whose  beauties  and  peculiarities  are  more  likely  to  be 
thrown  into  strong  relief  by  being  looked  at  with  a  sportsman's 
eye.  It  is  so  with  all  forests  and  moor-lands.  The  spirit  of 
Robin  Hood  and  Johnny  of  Breadislee  is  theirs.  They  are  rem 
nants  of  the  home  of  man's  fierce  youth,  still  consecrated  to  the 
genius  of  animal  excitement  and  savage  freedom  ;  after  all,  not 
the  least  noble  qualities  of  human  nature.  Besides,  there  is  no 
better  method  of  giving  a  living  picture  of  a  whole  county  than 
by  taking  some  one  feature  of  it  as  a  guide,  and  bringing  all 
other  observations  into  harmony  with  that  original  key.  Even 
in  merely  scientific  books  this  is  very  possible.  Look,  for  instance, 
at  Hugh  Miller's  Old  Red  Sandstone,  The  Voyaye  of  the  Beagle, 
and  Professor  Forbes's  work  (we  had  almost  said  epic  poem)  on 
Glaciers.  Even  an  agricultural  writer,  if  he  have  a  real  insight 
in  him — if  he  have  any  thing  of  that  secret  of  the  piu  nef  uno, 
"  the  power  of  discovering  the  infinite  in  the  finite  ; "  of  seeing, 
like  a  poet,  trivial  phenomena  in  their  true  relation  to  the  whole 
of  the  great  universe,  into  which  they  are  so  cunningly  fitted ;  if 
he  has  learned  to  look  at  all  things  and  men,  down  to  the  mean 
est,  as  living  lessons,  written  with  the  finger  of  God  ;  if,  in  short, 
he  has  any  true  dramatic  power,  he  may  impart  to  that  apparently 
muddiest  of  sciences  a  poetic  or  a  humorous  tone,  and  give  the  lie 
to  Mephistopheles  when  he  dissuades  Faust  from  farming  as  an 
occupation  too  mean  and  filthy  for  a  man  of  genius.  The  poetry 
of  agriculture  remains  as  yet,  no  doubt,  unwritten,  and  the  com 
edy  of  it  also ;  though  its  farce-tragedy  is  being  now,  alas !  very 
extensively  enacted  in  practice — unconsciously  to  the  players. 
As  for  the  old  "  pastoral "  school,  it  only  flourished  before  agricul 
ture  really  existed ;  that  is,  before  sound  science,  hard  labour, 
and  economy,  were  necessary,  and  has  been  for  the  last  two  hun 
dred  years  simply  a  lie.  Nevertheless,  as  signs  of  what  may  be 
done  even  now  by  a  genial  man  with  so  stubborn  a  subject  as 
"  turnips,  barley,  clover,  wheat,"  it  is  worth  while  to  look  at  old 
Arthur  Young's  books,  both  travels  and  treatises,  and  also  at  cer 
tain  very  spirited  Chronicles  of  a  Clay  Farm,  by  Talpa,  lately 
publishing  in  the  Agricultural  Gazette,  which  teem  with  humour 


NORTH  DEVON.  223 

and  wisdom,  and  will  hereafter,  we  hope,  be  given  to  us  in  the 
form  of  a  separate  book. 

In  sporting  literature,  (a  tenth  muse,  exclusively  indigenous 
to  England,)  the  same  observation  holds  good  tenfold.  Some  of 
our  most  perfect  topographical  sketches  have  been  the  work  of 
sportsmen.  Old  Tzaac  Walton,  and  his  friend  Cotton,  of  Dove- 
dale,  whose  names  will  last  as  long  as  their  rivers,  have  been 
followed  by  a  long  train  of  worthy  pupils.  White's  History  of 
Selborne ;  Sir  Humphry  Davy's  Salmonia  ;  The  Wild  Sports  of 
the  West ;  Mr.  St.  John's  charming  little  works  on  Highland 
shooting ;  and,  above  all,  Christopher  North's  Recreations — • 
delicious  book !  to  be  read  and  re-read,  and  laughed  over,  and 
cried  over,  the  tenth  time  even  as  the  first — an  inexhaustible 
fairy  well,  springing  out  of  the  granite  rock  of  the  sturdy  Scotch 
heart,  through  the  tender  green  turf  of  a  genial  boyish  old  age. 
We  might  mention,  too,  certain  Letters  from  an  Angler  in  Nor 
way  in  the  same  style,  which  appeared,  much  to  our  pleasure  and 
instruction,  in  this  magazine  last  year.  But  it  is  really  invidious 
to  Mr.  H.  Byng  Hall  to  quote  any  more  books,  merely  to  depre 
ciate  his  work  all  the  lower  by  the  contrast.  "  Why,  then,"  a 
reader  may  ask,  "  take  notice  of  a  book  which  you  have  already 
all  but  called  not  worth  noticing  ?  "  Because,  in  the  first  place, 
gentle  reader,  people  must  be  scared  from  meddling  with  fine  sub 
jects  only  to  spoil  them ;  and,  in  the  next  place,  sporting-books 
form  an  integral  and  significant,  and,  in  our  eyes,  a  very  honour 
able  and  useful  part,  of  the  English  literature  of  this  day;  and, 
therefore,  all  shallowness,  vulgarity,  stupidity,  or  bookmaking 
in  that  class,  must  be  as  severely  attacked  as  in  novels  and  poems. 
We  English  owe  too  much  to  our  field  sports  to  allow  people  to 
talk  nonsense  about  them. 

Half  the  book  is  not  about  sporting  at  all,  but  consists  merely 
of  bills  of  fare  of  the  various  eatable?,  drinkables,  and  smokables, 
of  which  the  author  partook  at  various  houses,  gentle  and  other, 
in  the  course  of  his  trip. — The  accounts  of  the  various  gentle 
men's  menages  being  of  that  minute  and  personal  kind,  which 
earned  for  the  American  Mr.  Rush,  and  our  own  Capt.  Basil 
Hall  a  somewhat  unenviable  notoriety,  and  which,  we  should  say, 
will  not  promote  Mr.  Byng  Hall's  chance  of  being  asked  a  second 
time  to  visit  the  hospitable  squires  whom  he  has  thus  unceremo 
niously  put  into  print. 

His  one  or  two  descriptions  of  scenery  are  the  baldest  common 
place,  riot  fit  for  a  county  newspaper.  His  single  good  story, 
about  a  Quaker  who,  having  been  tempted  out  hunting,  became 
a  Nimrod  for  life,  he  has  spoiled  in  the  telling.  Has  the  good 
gentleman,  by  the  by,  as  he  seems  to  consider  this  a  singular 


224  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

instance,  been  in  Leicestershire  during  the  last  few  years  ?  There 
was  a  certain  hard-riding  Quaker  there  whom  he  ought  hardly 
to  have  failed  of  meeting.  And  there  are  those  who  can  recol 
lect  another  Quaker  keeping  as  good  a  stud  of  horses,  and  riding 
as  hard,  either  in  forest  or  enclosure,  as  most  men  south  of  Lei 
cestershire.  Mr.  Byng  Hall  knows  so  little  about  the  country, 
that  he  has  never  said  a  word,  as  far  as  we  can  find,  about  the 
splendid  Exmoor  fishing,  the  best  in  Devonshire,  on  the  Baiie, 
the  Exe,  and  a  dozen  other  tributaries,  though  he  stayed  at  Dul- 
verton,  the  finest  fishing-station  in  the  west  of  England ;  and  he 
must  needs  carry  us  off  to  Axminster,  a  very  good  fishing-place 
in  its  way,  but  of  which  he  seems  to  know  nothing  beyond  the 
comestibles,  and  which  has  as  much  to  do  with  Exmoor  as  it  has 
with  Salisbury  Plain  or  Cheapside.  As  for  his  stories  and  sta 
tistics  of  stag  and  other  hunting,  few  as  they  are,  we  used  to  see 
a  dozen  in  every  number  of  Bell's  Life  or  the  Sporting  Magazine, 
in  our  own  mad  days,  written  with  ten  times  the  spirit  and 
understanding,  vigour,  and  picturesqueness,  either  venatic  or 
literary.  We  suppose,  though  we  have  not  been  able  to  find  any 
clear  account  of  the  fact,  that  Mr.  Hall  has  ridden  with  the 
Exmoor  staghounds  himself  once  at  least  in  his  life,  for  he  pre 
faces  his  book  by  a  frontispiece  of  a  "  stag  at  bay  in  Watersmeet 
— taken  from  nature  : "  by  memory,  we  apprehend,  as  sketch 
books  are  not  commonly  carried  out  hunting.  But,  O  favoured 
mortal !  has  he  actually  seen  a  real  stag  at  bay  there  ?  We  will 
forgive  the  badness  of  the  drawing,  for  never  stag  or  hounds 
"  took  soil "  *  so  coolly,  and  the  utter  unlikeness  of  the  scenery  to 
that  magnificent  gorge.  But  had  he  nothing  to  tell  us  about  that 
run  or  any  other  ?  Does  he  fancy  that  it  is  an  account  of  a  run 
to  tell  us  that  "  Found  at  ....  cover,  held  away  at  a  slapping 
pace  for  ....  Barn,  then  turned  down  the  ....  water  for 
a  mile,  and  crossed  the  Forest,  (what  a  saying  to  him  who  has 
eyes  and  ears !)  made  for  ....  Hill,  but  being  headed,  went 
by  ....  woods  to  D  .  .  .  .,  where  he  was  run  into,  after  a 
gallant  race  of  ....  hours  and  ....  miles?"  It  is  nearly 
as  bad  as  a  history  book  ! 

Surely,  like  the  old  Greek,  Diana  struck  him  blind  that  day, 
for  intruding  unworthily  on  her  sacred  privacy.  He  has  ridden 
with  the  Exmoor  staghounds,  and  these  are  all  the  thoughts  that 
he  has  brought  away  !  Could  not  that  sudden  return  from  rail 
roads  and  civilization  to  the  wild  joys  of  our  old  Norse  forefathers 
awaken  one  new  thought  in  him  above  commonplace  claptrap, 

*  Mr.  Byng  Hall  does  not,  we  have  since  remarked,  know  how  to  draw  a 
stag's  antlers  with  even  tolerable  correctness.  And  yet  he  "  drew  from  Nature." 
How  often,  in  the  name  of  all  bookmakers  ? 


NORTH   DEVON.  225 

and  the  names  of  covers,  hounds,  and  eatables  ?  We  never  rode 
with  those  staghounds,  and  jet  we  could  tell  him  something  about 
that  run,  wherever  the  stag  was  roused — how  the  panting  caval 
cade  rose  and  fell  on  the  huge  mile-long  waves  of  that  vast 
heather  sea ;  how  one  long  brown  hill  after  another  sunk  down, 
grayer  and  grayer,  behind  them,  and  one  long  gray  hill  after 
another  swelled  up  browner  and  browner  before  them  ;  and  how 
the  sandstone  rattled  and  flew  beneath  their  feet,  as  the  great 
horses,  like  Homer's  of  old,  "  devoured  up  the  plain  ; "  and  how 
they  struggled  down  the  hill-side,  through  bushes  and  rocks,  and 
broad,  slipping,  rattling  sheets  of  screes,  and  saw  beneath  them 
stag  and  pack  galloping  down  the  shallow,  glittering  river  bed, 
throwing  up  the  shingle,  striking  out  the  water  in  long  glistening 
sheets ;  and  how  they  too  swept  after  them,  down  the  flat  valley, 
rounding  crag  and  headland,  which  opened  one  after  another  in 
interminable  vista,  along  the  narrow  strip  of  sand  and  rushes, 
speckled  with  stunted,  moss-bearded,  heather-bedded  hawthorns, 
between  the  great,  grim,  lifeless  mountain  walls.  Did  he  feel 
even  no  delicious  creeping  of  the  flesh  that  day  at  the  sound  of 
his  own  horse-hoofs  in  the  heath  ?  The  author  of  Yeast  distin 
guishes  between  the  "  dull  thunder  of  the  clayey  turf,"  and  the 
"  flame-like  crackle  of  the  dry  stubbles  ;  "  but  he  forgot  a  sound 
more  delicate  than  them  both,  when  the  hoofs  sweep  through  the 
long  ling  with  a  sound  as  soft  as  the  brushing  of  a  woman's  tresses, 
and  then  ring  down  on  the  spungy,  black,  reverberating  soil,  chip 
ping  the  honey-laden  fragrant  heather  blossoms,  and  tossing  them 
out  in  a  rosy  shower.  Or,  if  that  were  too  slight  a  thing  for  the 
observation  of  a  fine  gentleman,  surely  he  must  recollect  the 
dying  away  of  the  hounds'  voices,  as  the  woodland  passes  engulf 
them,  whether  it  were  at  Brandon  or  at  Badgerworthy,  or  any 
other  name ;  how  they  brushed  through  the  narrow  forest  paths, 
where  the  ashes  were  already  golden,  and  the  oaks  still  kept  their 
sombre  green,  and  the  red  leaves  and  berries  of  the  mountain- 
ash  showed  bright  beneath  the  dark  forest  aisles ;  and  how  all  of 
a  sudden  the  wild  outcry  before  them  seemed  to  stop  and  concen 
trate,  thrown  back,  louder  and  louder  as  they  rode,  off  the  same 
echoing  crag,  till  at  a  sudden  turn  of  the  road  there  stood  the 
stag  beneath  them  in  the  stream,  his  back  against  the  black  rock, 
with  its  green  cushions  of  dripping  velvet,  knee  deep  in  the  clear 
amber  water,  the  hounds  around  him,  some  struggling  and  swim 
ming  in  the  deep  pool,  some  rolling,  and  tossing,  and  splashing 
in  a  mad,  half-terrified  ring,  as  he  reared  into  the  air  on  his 
great  haflnches,  with  the  sparkling  beads  running  off  his  red 
mane,  and  dropping  on  his  knees  plunged  his  antlers  down  among 
them,  with  blows  which  would  have  each  brought  certain  death 

10* 


226  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

with  it  if  the  yielding  water  had  not  broken  the  shock.  Does  he 
not  remember  the  death  ?  The  huge  carcass  dragged  out  of  the 
stream,  followed  by  dripping,  panting  dogs,  the  blowing  of  the 
mort,  and  the  last  wild  halloo,  when  the  horn  note  and  the  voices 
rang  through  the  autumn  woods,  and  rolled  up  the  smooth,  flat, 
mountain  sides  ;  and  Brendon  answered  Countisbury,  and  Coun- 
tisbury  sent  it  on  to  Lynmouth  hills,  till  it  swept  out  of  the  gorge 
and  died  away  upon  the  Severn  sea.  And  then,  does  he  not 
remember  the  pause,  and  the  revulsion,  and  the  feeling  of  sad 
ness  and  littleness,  almost  of  shame,  as  he  looked  up  for  the  njrst 
time — we  can  pardon  his  not  having  done  so  before, — and  saw 
where  he  was,  and  the  stupendous  beauty  of  the  hill-sides,  with 
the  lazy  autumn  clouds  crawling  about  their  tops,  and  the  great 
sheets  of  screes,  glaciers  of  stone,  covering  acres  and  acres  of 
the  smooth  hill  side,  eating  far  into  the  woods  below,  bowing 
down  the  oak  scrubs  with  their  weight,  and  the  vast,  circular 
sweeps  of  down  above  him,  flecked  with  innumerable*  dark  spots 
of  gorse,  each  of  them  guarded  where  they  open  into  the  river 
chasm  by  two  mighty  fortresses  of  "  giant-snouted  crags," — deli 
cate  pink  and  gray  sandstone,  from  which  blocks  and  crumbling 
boulders  have  been  toppling  slowly  down  for  ages,  beneath  the 
frost  and  the  whirlwind,  and  now  lie  in  long  downward  streams 
upon  the  slope,  as  if  the  mountain  had  been  weeping  tears  of  stone? 
And  then,  as  the  last  notes  of  the  mort  had  died  away,  did  not 
there  come  over  him  an  awe  at  the  deathless  silence  of  the  woods, 
not  broken,  but  deepened,  by  the  solemn  unvarying  monotone  of 
the  roaring  stream  beneath,  which  flashed  and  glittered,  half- 
hidden  in  the  dark  leafy  chasm,  in  clear,  brown  pools,  reflecting 
every  leaf  and  twig,  in  boiling  pits  and  walls  of  foam,  ever 
changing,  and  yet  for  ever  the  same,  fleeting  on  past  the  poor, 
dead,  reeking  stag,  and  the  silent  hounds  lying  about  on  the 
moss-embroidered  stones,  their  lolling  tongues  showing  like  bright 
crimson  sparkles  in  the  deep  rich  Venetian  air  of  the  green 
sombre  shades ;  while  the  startled  water-ousel,  with  his  white 
breast,  flitted  a  few  yards  and-  stopped  to  stare  from  a  rock's 
point  at  the  strange  intruders ;  and  a  single  stockdove,  out  of  the 
bosom  of  the  wood,  began  calling,  sadly  and  softly,  with  a  dreamy 
peaceful  moan  ?  Did  he  not  see  and  hear  all  this,  for  surely  it 
was  there  to  see  and  hear? 

Not  he.  The  eye  only  sees  that  which  it  brings  within  the 
power  of  seeing ;  and  all  we  can  say  of  him  is,  that  a  certain 
apparition  in  white  leathers  was  at  one  period  of  its  appearance 
dimly  conscious  of  equestrian  motion  towards  a  certain  brown, 
two-horned  phenomenon,  and  other  spotted  phenomena,  at  which 
he  had  been  taught  by  habit  to  make  the  articulate  noises  "  stag  " 


NORTH  DEVON,  227 

and  "  hounds,"  among  certain  gray,  and  green,  and  brown  ap 
pearances,  at  which  the  same  habit  and  the  example  of  his  fel 
lows  had  taught  him  to  say,  "  Rock,  and  wood,  and  mountain," 
and  perhaps  the  further  noises  of  "  Lovely,  splendid,  majestic." 

Come,  we  will  leave  Mr.  Byng  Hall  to  his  names  and  his 
dates,  arid  his  legs  of  pork,  and  his  bottles  of  claret,  and  you 
shall  wander  if  you  choose,  for  a  day  or  two  with  an  old  North 
Devon  man,  and  he  will  show  you  what  the  land  is  like. 


CHAPTER  II. 

A     DAY     ON    EXMOOR. 

SUCH  was  the  substance  of  the  monologue  with  which  the  other 
evening  we  put  to  sleep  our  old  friend  Claude  Mellot,  artist  and 
Londoner,  whom  we  found  at  the  Lyndale  Hotel,  in  a  state  of 
infuriation  at  his  own  incapacity  to  put  on  canvas  the  manifold 
beauty  with  which  he  was  surrounded.  We  need  not  say  that 
we  fraternized  with  him  on  the  spot.  Claude  was  full  of  decla 
mations  about  the  "new  scientific  school  of  painting"  which  he 
expected  daily  to  arise  ;  he  was  "  ravi "  with  Politics  for  the 
People  ;  he  "  considered  Punch  becoming  weekly,  more  and  more, 
the  most  extraordinary  specimen  of  blameless  humour  and  high 
satiric  morality  which  Europe  had  ever  seen  ;  "  possessing  "  every 
excellence  of  poor,  dear,  naughty  olcl  Rabelais,  without  one  of 
his  faults ;  "  and,  above  all,  he  was  as  ready  as  ever  to  push  for 
ward,  cheerfully  and  trustfully,  into  the  chances  of  this  strange 
new  time,  with  a  courage  very  refreshing  to  us  in  these  maudlin, 
cowardly  days,  when  in  too  many  lands,  alas  ! — 

"  Has  come  that  last  drear  mood 
Of  sated  lust,  and  dull  decrepitude — 
No  faith,  no  art,  no  priest,  no  king,  no  God; 
While  round  their  crumbling  fanes  in  peevish  ring, 
Crouched  on  the  bare-worn  sod, 
Babbling  about  the  unreturning  spring, 
And  whining  for  dead  forms,  that  will  not  save, 
The  toothless  sects  sink  snarling  to  their  grave." 

The  conversation  recommenced  the  next  morning,  as  we  rode 
out  together  over  the  hills  upon  a  couple  of  ragged  ponies — he 
with  his  sketch-book,  we  with  our  fishing-rod  and  creel — up  into 

the  heart  of  Exmoor,  towards  a  certain  stream. But,  gentle 

reader,  in  these  days,  when  every  one  is  an  angler,  we  are  not 
the  schoolboy,  who,  as  Shakspeare  says,  tells  his  companions-  of  the 
bird's  nest  that  he  may  go  and  steal  it ;  so  we  will  not  mention 
where  the  said  stream  was.  After  all  one  stream  is  very  like  an 
other,  especially  to  the  multitude  who  fish  arid  can  catch  nothing. 


228  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

"  Well,  Claude,"  we  said,  "  you  confess  yourself  baffled  with 
this  magnificence  ?  " 

"  Yes  !  to  paint  it  worthily  one  would  require  to  be  a  Turner, 
a  Copley  Fielding,  and  a  Creswick,  all  in  one." 

"  Well,  you  shall  try  your  pencil  to-day  on  simpler  and  severer 
subjects.  I  can  promise  you  nothing  rich,  nothing  grand,  noth 
ing  which  will  even  come  under  the  denomination  of  that  vile 
word  "picturesque."  But  I  will  show  you  one  scrap  of  Eng 
land,  left  just  as  it  was  before  either  Celt,  Cymry,  Saxon,  or 
Norseman,  trod  its  shores ;  *and  that  surely  is  a  sight  which  may 
give  some  new  notions  to  a  Londoner.  And  before  we  reach  it, 
why  should  we  not  pray  to  the  Maker  of  it  and  us  to  "  open  our 
eyes,  that  we  may  understand  the  wondrous  things  of  his  law," 
— written  there  all  around  in  the  great  green  book,  whose  two 
covers  are  the  star  vault  and  the  fire  kingdoms ;  whose  leaves 
are  the  mountain  ridges  ;  whose  letters  are  the  oak  boughs,  and 
the  heather  bells,  and  the  gnats  above  the  stream  ;  and  the  light 
whereby  we  read  it,  the  simple  loving  heart  which  is  content  to 
go  wondering  and  awe-struck  all  its  days,  and  find  in  that  mood 
peace,  and  strength,  and  wisdom  ?  " 

"Amen  !  "  he  answered.  "  '  If  thine  eye  be  single,  thy  whole 
body  shall  be  full  of  light.'  And  surely  there  was  never  a  fitter 
place  wherein  to  offer  up  such  a  prayer  than  in  this  most  glori 
ous  of  the  rock-aisles  of  God's  island  temple  of  England.  For 
here,  too,  is  '  a  sanctuary -not  made  with  hands ; '  here,  too,  if 
you  will  but  listen,  the  earth  spirits  are  praising  God  night  and 
day,  with  '  voices  like  the  sound  of  many  waters.' " 

"A  somewhat  narrow  and  materialist  adaptation  of  Scripture, 
Claude,"  we  rejoined. 

"  Heaven  forbid !  What  is  earth  but  the  image  of  heaven  ? 
Does  not  Solomon  tell  us,  how  the  things  which  are  seen  are  the 
doubles  of  the  things  which  are  not  seen  ?  " 

"  Did  you  ever  remark,"  we  asked,  after  a  pause,  "how  such 
unutterable  scenes  as  this  gorge  of  the  '  Waters-meet '  stir 
up  a  feeling  of  shame,  almost  of  peevishness,  before  the  sense 
of  a  mysterious  meaning  which  we  ought  to  understand  and 
cannot  ?  " 

He  smiled. 

"  Our  torments  do  by  length  of  time  become  our  elements  ; 
and  painful  as  that  sensation  is  to  the  earnest  artist,  he  will  feel 
it,  I  fancy,  at  last  sublime  itself  into  an  habitually,  gentle,  rever 
ent,  almost  melancholy  tone  of  mind,  as  of  a  man  bearing  the 
burden  of  an  infinite,  wonderful  message,  which  his  own  frivolity 
and  laziness  hinder  him  from  speaking  out ;  and  it  should  beget 
in  him  too  "  (with  a  glance  at  us,)  "  something  of  merciful  in- 


NOETH  DEVON.  229 

diligence  towards  the  stupidity  of  those  who  see,  after  all,  only  a 
very  little  shallower  than  he  does  into  the  unfathomable  depths 
of  nature." 

"  You  mean,"  we  said,  "  that  we  were  too  hard  last  night 
upon  the  poor  gentleman  who  took  upon  himself  to  write  about 
Exmoor  ?  " 

"  I  do  indeed.  How  has  he  harmed  you,  or  any  one  but  him 
self?  He  has  gained  a  few  more  days'  pleasure  in  his  way. 
Let  us  thank  God  that  he  has  even  so  far  enjoyed  himself,  and 
call  that  fact,  as  it  is,  fairly  lucro  apponendum  in  the  gross  sum 
of  human  happiness." 

"  Friend  Claude,  we  are  the  last  to  complain  of  any  man's  in 
nocent  pleasure,  down  to  the  joys  of  pork  and  claret.  We  only 
complain  of  his  putting  it  into  print.  Surely  the  gentlemen  of 
England  must  help,  at  least,  to  save  her,  if  she  is  to  be  saved, 
from  what  is  happening  to  every  continental  nation.  And  this 
it  is,  Claude,  which  makes  us  so  indignant  when  we  see  a  gen 
tleman  writing  a  foolish  or  a  vulgar  book.  Here  is  a  man  whose 
education,  for  aught  we  know,  has  cost  a  thousand  pounds  or  so, 
at  home  or  abroad.  Does  not  such  a  man,  by  the  very  expense 
of  him,  promise  more  than  this  ?  And  do  not  our  English  field- 
sports,  which,  with  the  exception  of  that  silly  and  brutal  Irish 
method  of  gambling  called  steeple-chasing,  we  reverence  and 
enjoy,— ^do  not  they,  by  the  expense  of  them,  promise  something 
more  than  this  ?  " 

"  Well,  as  I  told  you  last  night,  sporting  books  and  sportsmen 
seem  to  me,  by  their  very  object,  not  to  be  worth  troubling  our 
heads  about.  Out  of  nothing,  comes  nothing.  See,  my  hands 
are  as  soft  as  any  lady's  in  Belgravia.  I  could  not,  to  save  my 
life,  lift  a  hundred  weight  a  foot  off  the  ground ;  while  you  have 
been  a  wild  man  of  the  woods,  a  leaper  of  ditches,  and  a  rower 
of  races,  and  a  wanton  destroyer  of  all  animal  life,  and  yet " 

"  You  would  hint  politely  that  you  are  as  open  as  ourselves  to 
all  noble,  and  chivalrous,  and  truly  manly  emotions  ?  " 

"  What  think  you  ?  " 

"  That  you  are  far  worthier  in  such  matters  than  we,  friend. 
But  do  not  forget  that  it  may  be  your  intellect,  and  your  pro 
fession — in  one  word,  God's  mercy,  which  have  steered  you 
clear  of  shoals  upon  which  you  will  find  the  mass  of  our  class 
founder.  Woe  to  the  class  or  the  nation  which  has  no  manly 
physical  training !  Look  at  the  manners,  the  morals,  the  faces 
of  the  young  men  of  the  shop-keeping  classes,  if  you  wish  to  see 
the  effects  of  utterly  neglecting  the  physicial  development  of  man, 
of  fancying  that  all  the  muscular  activity  he  requires  under  the 
sun  is  to  be  able  to  stand  behind  a  counter,  or  sit  on  a  desk-stool 


230  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

without  tumbling  off.  Be  sure,  be  sure,  that  ever  since  the  days 
of  the  Persians  of  old,  effeminacy,  if  not  twin-sister  of  cowardice 
and  dishonesty,  has  always  gone  hand  in  hand  with  them.  To 
that  utter  neglect  of  any  exercises  which  call  out  fortitude,  pa 
tience,  self-dependence,  and  daring,  we  attribute  a  great  deal  of 
the  low  sensuality,  the  conceited  vulgarity,  the  utter  want  of  a 
high  sense  of  honour,  which  prevails  just  now  among  the  middle 
classes  ;  and  from  which  the  navigator,  the  engineer,  the  miner, 
and  the  sailor,  are  comparatively  free." 

"  And  perhaps,  too,  that  similar  want  of  any  high  sense  of 
honour,  which  seems,  from  the  religious  periodicals,  to  pervade  a 
large  proportion  of  a  certain  more  venerable  profession  ?  " 

"  Seriously,  Claude,  we  believe  you  are  not  far  wrong.  But 
we  are  getting  on  delicate  ground  there :  but  we  have  always 
found,  that  of  whatever  profession  he  may  be-— to  travestie 
Shakspeare's  words, — 

The  man  that  hath  not  sporting  in  his  soul, 
Is  fit  for  treason's  direst  stratagems 

and  so  on." 

"  Civil  to  me ! " 

"  Oh,  you  have  a  sporting  soul  in  you,  like  hundreds  of  other 
Englishmen  who  never  handled  rod  or  gun,  or  you  would  not  be 
steering  for  Exmoor  to-day.  But  such  I  have  almost  invariably 
found  to  have  been  men  of  the  very  highest  intellect.  If  your 
boy  be  a  genius,  you  may  trust  him  to  find  some  original  means 
for  developing  his  manly  energies,  whether  in  art,  agriculture, 
civil  engineering,  or  travels,  discovery,  and  commerce.  But  if 
he  be  not,  as  there  are  a  thousand  chances  to  one  he  will  not  be, 
whatever  you  teach  him,  let  the  first  two  things  be,  as  they  were 
with  the  old  Persians,  'To  speak  the  truth,  and  to  draw  the 
bow.' " 

By  this  time  we  had  reached  the  stream,  just  clearing  from  the 
last  night's  showers.  A  long,  transparent,  amber  shallow,  dimp 
led  with  fleeting  silver  rings  by  rising  trout ;  a  low  cascade  of 
green-veined  snow ;  a  deep,  dark  pool  of  swirling  orange-brown, 
walled  in  with  heathery  rocks,  and  paved  with  sandstone  slabs 
and  boulders,  distorted  by  the  changing  refractions  of  the  eddies, — 
sight  delicious  to  the  angler. 

We  commenced  our  sport  at  once,  while  Claude  wandered  up 
the  glen  to  sketch  a  knoll  of  crags,  on  which  a  half-wild  moor 
land  pony,  the  only  living  thing  in  sight,  stood  staring  and  snuf 
fing  at  the  intruder,  his  long  mane  and  tail  streaming  out  wildly 
against  the  sky. 

We  had  fished  on  for  some  hour  or  two ;  Claude  had  long 
since  disappeared  among  the  hills ;  we  fancied  ourselves  miles 


NORTH  DEVON.  231 

from  any  human  being,  when  a  voice  at  our   elbow  startled 
us: — 

"  A  bleak  place  for  fishing  this,  sir !  " 

We  turned  ;  it  was  an  old  gray-whiskered  labouring  man,  with 
pick  and  spade  on  shoulder,  who  had  crept  on  us  unawares  be 
neath  the  wall  of  the  neighbouring  deer-cover.  Keen,  honest 
eyes,  gleamed  out  from  his  brown,  scarred,  weather-beaten  face  ; 
and  as  he  settled  himself  against  a  rock,  with  the  deliberate  in 
tention  of  a  chat,  we  commenced  by  asking  after  Mr.  Knight, 
"  The  Lord  of  Stags,"  well  known  and  honoured  both  by  sports 
man  and  by  farmer. 

"  He  was  gone  to  Malta — a  warmer  place  that  than  Exmoor." 

"  What !  have  you  been  in  Malta  ?  " 

"Yes,  he  had  been  in  Malta,  and  in  stranger  places  yet.  He 
had  been  a  sailor ;  he  had  seen  the  landing  in  Egypt,  and  heard 
the  French  cannon  thundering  vainly  from  the  sandhills  on  the 
English  boats.  He  had  himself  helped  to  lift  Abercrombie  up  the 
ship's  side  to  the  death-bed  of  the  brave.  He  had  seen  Caraccioli 
hanging  at  his  own  yard-arm,  and  heard  Lady  Hamilton  order 
out  the  barge  herself,  and  row  round  the  frigate  of  the  murdered 
man,  to  glut  her  eyes  with  her  revenge.  He  had  seen,  too,  the 
ghastly  corpse  floating  upright,  when  Nelson  and  the  enchantress 
met  their  victim,  returned  from  the  sea-depths  to  stare  at  them, 
as  Banquo's  ghost  upon  Macbeth.  But  she  was  *  a  mortal  fine 
woman,'  was  Lady  Hamilton,  though  she  was  a  queer  one,  and 
'  cruel  kind  to  the  sailors ; '  and  many  a  man  she  saved  from 
flogging ;  and  one  from  hanging,  too ;  that  was  a  marine  that  got 
a-stealing ;  for  Nelson,  though  he  was  kind  enough,  yet  it  was  a 
word  and  a  blow  with  him ;  and  quite  right  he,  sir ;  for  there  be 
such  rascals  on  board  ship,  that  if  you  arn't  as  sharp  with  them 
as  with  wild  beastesses,  no  man's  life,  nor  the  ship's  neither,  would 
be  worth  a  day's  purchase." 

So  he,  with  his  simple  straight-forward  notions  of  right  and 
wrong,  worth  much  maudlin  ^merciful  indulgence  which  we 
hear  in  these  days, — and  yet  not  going  to  the  bottom  of  the  mat 
ter  either,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  next  war.  But,  rambling  on, 
he  told  me  how  he  had  come  home,  war-worn  and  crippled,  to 
marry  a  wife  and  get  tall  sons,  and  lay  his  bones  in  his  native 
village ;  till  which  time,  (for  death  to  the  aged  poor  man  is  a 
Sabbath,  of  which  he  talks  freely,  calmly,  even  joyously,)  "  he 
just  got  his  bread,  by  Mr.  Knight's  kindness,  patching  and  mend 
ing  at  the  stone  deer-fences." 

We  gave  him  something  to  buy  tobacco,  and  watched  him  as 
he  crawled  away,  with  a  sort  of  stunned  surprise.  And  he  had 
actually  seen  Nelson  sit  by  Lady  Hamilton !  It  was  so  strange, 


232  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

to  have  that  gay  Italian  bay,  with  all  its  memories, — the  orgies 
of  Baiae,  and  the  unburied  wrecks  of  ancient  towns,  with  the 
smoking  crater  far  above  ;  and  the  world-famous  Nile-mouths, 
and  those  great  old  wars,  big  with  the  destinies  of  the  world ;  and 
those  great  old  heroes,  with  their  awful  deeds  for  good  and  evil, 
all  brought  so  suddenly  and  livingly  before  us,  up  there  in  the 
desolate  moorland,  where 'the  deer,  and  birds,  and  heath,  and 
rushes,  were  even  as  they  had  been  from  the  beginning.  Like 
Wordsworth  with  his  Leech- Gatherer,  (a  poem  which  we,  in 
spite  of  laughter,  will  rank  among  his  very  highest,) — 

While  he  was  talking  thus,  the  lonely  place, 
The  old  man's  shape,  and  speech — all  troubled  me: 
In  my  mind's  eye  I  seemed  to  see  him  pace 
About  the  weary  moors  continually, 
Wandering  about  alone  and  silently. 

Just  then  we  heard  a  rustle,  and  turning,  saw  Claude  toiling 
down  to  us  over  the  hill-side.  He  joined  us,  footsore  and  weary, 
but  in  great  excitement ;  for  the  first  minute  or  two  he  could  not 
speak,  and  at  last, — 

"  Oh,  I  have  seen  such  a  sight ! — but  I  will  tell  you  how  it  all 
was.  After  I  left  you  I  met  a  keeper.  He  spoke  civilly  to  me — 
you  know  my  antipathy  to  game  and  those  who  live  thereby,  but 
there  was  a  wild,  bold,  self-helping  look  about  him  and  his  gun 
alone  there  in  the  waste — And  after  all  he  was  a  man  and  a 
brother.  Well,  we  fell  into  talk,  and  fraternized ;  and  at  last  he 
oifered  to  take  me  to  a  neighbouring  hill  and  show  me  '  sixty 
head  of  red-deer  all  together : '  and  as  he  spoke  he  looked  quite 
proud  of  his  words.  '  I  was  lucky,'  he  said,  '  to  come  just  then, 
for  in  another  week  the  stags  would  all  have  lost  their  heads.' 
At  which  speech  I  wondered;  but  was  silent,  and  followed  him, 
I,  Claude  the  Cockney,  such  a  walk  as  I  shall  never  take  again. 
Behold  these  trousers — behold  these  hands  !  scratched  to  pieces 
by  crawling  on  all-fours  through  the  heather.  But  I  saw  them." 

"  A  sight  worth  many  pairs  of  plaid  trousers  ?  " 

"  Worth  Saint  Chrysostom's  seven  years'  nakedness  on  all- 
fours  !  And  so  I  told  the  fellow,  who  by  some  cunning  calculations 
about  wind,  and  sun,  and  so  forth,  which  he  imparted  to  my  un 
comprehending  ears,  brought  me  suddenly  to  the  top  of  a  little 
crag,  below  which,  some  sixty  yards  off,  the  whole  herd  stood, 
stags,  hinds — but  I  can't  describe  them.  I  have  not  brought 
away  a  scrap  of  sketch,  though  we  watched  them  full  ten  minutes 
undiscovered ;  and  then  the  stare,  and  the  toss  of  those  antlers, 
and  the  rush  !  That  broke  the  spell  with  me ;  for  I  had  been 
staring  stupidly  at  them,  trying  in  vain  to  take  in  the  wonder, 
with  the  strangest  new  excitement  heaving  and  boiling  up  in  my 


NORTH  DEVON.  233 

throat,  and  at  the  sound  of  their  hoofs  on  the  turf  I  woke,  and 
found  the  keeper  staring,  not  at  them,  but  at  me,  down  whose 
cheeks  the  tears  were  running  in  streams." 

" '  Arn't  you  well,  sir  ? '  said  he.  '  You  needn't  be  afeard  ; 
it's  only  at  the  fall  of  the  year  the  stags  is  wicked.' 

"  I  don't  know  what  I  answered  at  first ;  but  the  fellow  under 
stood  me  when  I  shook  his  hand  frantically  and  told  him  that  I 
should  thank  him  to  the  last  day  of  my  life,  and  that  I  would  not 
have  missed  it  for  a  thousand  pounds.  In  part-proof  whereof  I 
gave  him  a  sovereign  on  the  spot,  which  seemed  to  clear  my 
character  in  his  eyes,  as  much  as  the  crying  at  the  sight  of  a  herd 
of  deer  had  mystified  it." 

"  Claude,  well-beloved,"  said  we,  "  will  you  ever  speak  con 
temptuously  of  sportsmen  any  more  ?  " 

"  Do  manus,  I  have  been  vilifying  them,  as  one  does  most 
things  in  the  world,  only  for  want  of  understanding  them.  I  will 
go  back  to  town,  and  take  service  with  Edwin  Landseer,  as 
colour-grinder,  footboy,  anything." 

"  You  will  then  be  very  near  to  a  very  great  poet,"  quoth  we, 
"  and  one  whose  works  will  become,  as  centuries  roll  on,  more 
and  more  valuable  to  art,  to  science,  and,  as  we  think  also,  to 
civilization,  and  to  Religion." 

"  I  begin  now  to  guess  your  meaning,"  answered  Claude. 

And  thereon  commenced  a  discussion,  which  it  is  not  expedient 
at  this  time  to  report  in  Fraser,  as  it  was  rather  a  wild-goose 
chase  for  truths,  in  a  vast,  new  field  of  thought,  than  any  satis 
factory  carrying  home  and  cooking  of  the  same. 

"  So  we  lounged,  and  dreamt,  and  fished,  in  heathery  High 
land,"  as  the  author  of  The  Bothie  would  say,  while  the  summer 
snipes  flitted  whistling  up  the  shallow  before  us,  and  the  soft, 
southeastern  clouds  slid  lazily  across  the  sun,  and  the  little  trout 
snapped  and  dimpled  at  a  tiny  partridge  hackle,  with  a  twist  of 
orange  silk,  whose  elegance  of  shape  and  colour  reconciled 
Claude's  heart  somewhat  to  our  everlasting  whipping  of  the 
water.  When  at  last : — 

"  You  seem  to  have  given  up  catching  any  thing.  You  have 
not  stirred  a  fish  in  these  last  two  pools,  except  that  little  saucy 
yellow  shrimp,  who  jumped  over  your  fly,  and  gave  a  spiteful 
slap  at  it  with  his  tail." 

Too  true  ;  and  what  could  be  the  cause  ?  Had  that  impudent 
sandpiper  frightened  all  the  fish  on  his  way  up  ?  Had  an  otter 
paralyzed  them  with  terror  for  the  morning  ?  Or  had  a  stag 
been  down  to  drink  ?  We  saw  the  fresh  slot  of  his  broad  claws, 
by  the  by,  in  the  mud  a  few  yards  back. 

"  We  must  have  seen  the  stag  himself,  if  he  had  been  here 
lately,"  said  Claude. 


234  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

"  Mr.  Landseer  knows  too  well  by  this  time  that  that  is  a  non 
sequitur" 

"  I'm  no  more  a  non  sequitur  than  you  are,"  answered  the 
Cornish  magistrate  to  the  barrister. 

"  Fish  and  deer,  friend,  see  us  purblind  sons  of  men,  somewhat 
more  quickly  than  we  see  them,  fear  sharpening  the  senses.  Per 
haps,  after  all,  the  fault  is  in  your  staring  white  straw  hat,  a  gar 
ment  which  has  spoilt  many  a  good  day's  fishing.  Ah,  no  !  there 
is  the  cause  ;  the  hat  of  a  mightier  than  you — the  thunder-spirit 
himself.  Thor  is  bringing  home  his  bride  ;  while  the  breeze, 
awe-stricken,  falls  dead  calm  before  his  march.  Behold,  climb 
ing  above  that  eastern  ridge,  his  huge  powdered  cauliflower-wig, 
barred  with  a  gray  horizontal  handkerchief  of  mist" 

"  Oh,  profane  and  uncomely  simile !  But  what  is  the  mystery 
of  his  bride  ?  " 

"  Know  you  not,  O  Symbolist,  that  the  law  of  sex,  which  holds 
good  throughout  all  nature,  is  seen  in  the  thunderstorm  ?  Look 
at  that  vast  gray  ragged  fan  of  mist  which  spreads  up,  higher 
and  higher  every  moment,  round  the  hard  masses  of  the  posi 
tively  electric  thunder-pillar.  Those  are  the  torn  and  streaming 
robes  of  that  poor  maiden,  the  negatively-electric  or  female  cloud, 
whom  Thor  is  bearing  off,  till  some  fit  bridal-bed  of  hills  shall 
attract  him  on  Brendon  or  Oare-Oak,  whereon  he  may  fill  her 
with  his  fiery  might,  and  celebrate  his  nuptials  in  jubilant  roars 
of  thunder." 

"  And  then,  O  Bombastes,  we  may  except  to  feel  the  icy  tears 
of  the  cold,  coy  maiden,  pattering  down  in  the  form  of  a  storm 
of  hail!" 

"  Which  is  here  already.  Flee,  oh,  flee  to  yonder  pile  of  crags, 
and  thank  your  stars  that  there  is  one  at  hand !  For  these  moun 
tain  tornadoes  are  at  once  tropic  in  their  ferocity  and  Siberian  in 
their  cutting  cold." 

Down  it  came.  The  brown  hills  vanished  in  white  sheets  of 
hail,  first  falling  perpendicular,  then  slanting  and  driving  furiously 
before  the  clod  blast  which  issued  from  the  storm.  The  rock 
above  us  rang  with  the  thunder-peals,  and  the  lightning,  which 
might  have  fallen  miles  away,  seemed  to  our  dazzled  eyes  to  dive 
into  the  glittering  river  at  our  feet.  We  sat  silent  some  half-hour, 
listening  to  the  voice  of  One  more  mighty  than  ourselves ;  and  it 
was  long  after  the  uproar  had  rolled  away  among  the  hills,  and 
a  steady,  sighing  sheet  of  warmer  rains,  from  banks  of  low  gray 
fog,  had  succeeded  the  rattling  of  the  hail  upon  the  crisp 
heather,  that  we  turned  to  Claude. 

"  And  now,  since  your  heart  is  softened  toward  these  wild, 
stag-hunting,  trout-fishing,  jovial  west-countrymen,  we  will  give 


NORTH  DEVON.  235 

you  a  ballad  which  sprung  up  in  us  once,  when  fishing  among 
these  very  hills.  It  expresses  feelings  not  yet  extinct  in  the 
minds  of  a  large  portion  of  the  lower  orders,  as  you  would  know 
had  you  lived,  like  ourselves,  all  your  life  in  poaching  counties, 
and  on  the  edges  of  one  forest  after  another, — feelings  which 
must  be  satisfied,  even  in  the  highest  development  of  the  civili 
zation  of  the  future,  for  they  are  innate  in  every  thoughtful  and 
energetic  race, — feelings  which,  though  they  have  often  led  to 
crime,  have  far  oftener  delivered  from  hoggish  sensuality ;  the 
feelings  which  drove  into  the  merry  greenwood  *  Robin  Hood, 
Scarlet,  and  John ; '  '  Adam  Bell,  and  Clym  of  the  Cleugh,  and 
William  of  Cloudeslee ; '  feelings  which  prompted  one  half  of  his 
inspiration  to  the  nameless  immortal  who  wrote  the  Nuibrown 
Maid, — feelings  which  could  not  then  and  cannot  now  be  satis 
fied  by  the  drudgery  of  a  barbaric  agriculture,  which,  without 
science,  economy,  or  enterprise,  offers  no  food  for  the  higher  instincts 
of  the  human  mind,  its  yearnings  after  Nature  and  freedom,  and 
the  noble  excitement  of  self-dependent  energy.  We  threw  it 
into  the  Scotch  dialect,  because  it  is,  indeed,  the  classic  one  for 
such  subjects,  as  the  Doric  was  for  certain  among  the  Greeks ; 
for  deeply  as  we  Southrons  have  felt  upon  these  matters  we  are 
a  dumb  people,  and  our  Norse  brethren  of  the  border  have  had 
to  speak  for  us  and  for  themselves,  and  monopolize  the  whole  of 
our  ballad  literature ;  and  though  we  will  not  go  as  far  as  Sir 
Walter  Scott  in  asserting  that  there  never  was  a  genuine  ballad 
written  south  of  Tweed,  there  is  little  doubt  that  few  ever  rose 
above  doggerel  which  were  written  south  of  Trent, — that  is, 
beyond  the  line  which  bounds  the  impregnation  of  the  Saxon  by 
the  more  intellectual  and  fiery  Norse  Tace.  Will  you  hear  it  ?  " — 

Oh,  I  wadna  be  a  yeoman,  mither,  to  follow  my  father's  trade, 
To  bow  my  back  in  miry  fallows  over  plough,  and  hoe,  and  spade. 
Stinting  wife,  and  bairns,  and  kye,  to  fat  some  courtier  lord, — 
Let  them  die  o'  rent  wha  like,  mither,  and  I'll  die  by  sword. 

Nor  I  wadna  be  a  clerk,  mither,  to  bide  aye  ben, ' 
Scrabbling  aye  on  sheets  o'  parchment  with  a  weary,  weary  pen, 
Looking  through  the  lang  stane  windows  at  a  narrow  strip  o'  sky, 
Like  a  laverock  in  a  withy  cage,  until  I  pine  away  and  die. 

Nor  I  wadna  be  the  merchant,  mither,  in  his  langfurred  gown, 
Trailing  strings  o'  footsore  horses  through  the  noisy,  dusty  town ; 
Louting  low  to  knights  and  ladies,  fumbling  o'er  his  wares, 
Telling  lies,  and  scraping  siller,  heaping  cares  on  cares. 

Nor  I  wadna  be  a  soldier,  mither,  to  dice  wi'  ruffian  bands, 

Pining  weary  months  in  castles,  looking  over  wasted  lands, 

Smoking  b/res,  and  shrieking  women,  and  the  grewsome  sights  o'  war, — 

There's  blood  oh  my  hand  eneugh,  mither — it's  ill  to  make  it  mair. 


236  KINGSLEY'S    MISCELLANIES. 

If  I  had  married  a  wife,  mither,  I  might  ha'  been  douce  and  still, 
And  sat  at  hame  be  the  ingle-side  to  crack  and  laugh  my  fill, 
Sat  at  hame  wi'  the  woman  I  looed,  and  bairnies  at  my  knee, — 
But  death  is  bauld,  and  age  is  cauld,  and  luve  's  no  for  me. 

For  when  first  I  stirred  in  your  side,  mither,  you  ken  full  well 
How  you  lay  all  night  up  among  the  deer  on  the  open  fell; 
And  so  it  was  that  I  got  the  heart  to  wander  far  and  near, 
Caring  neither  for  land  nor  lassie,  but  the  bonny  dun  deer. 

Yet  I  am  not  a  lozel  and  idle,  mither,  nor  a  thief  that  steals; 
I  do  but  hunt  God's  cattle,  upon  God's  ain  hills: 
For  no  man  buys  and  sells  the  deer,  and  the  fells  are  free 
To  a  knight  that  carries  hawk  and  spurs,  and  a  hind  like  me. 

So  I'm  aff  and  away  to  the  muirs,  mither,  to  hunt  the  deer, 

Ranging  far  fra  frowning  faces,  and  the  douce  folk  here; 

Crawling  up  through  burn  and  bracken,  louping  madly  down  the  screes, 

Speering  out  fra  craig  and  headland,  drinking  up  the  simmer  breeze. 

Oh,  the  wafts  o'  heather  honey,  and  the  music  o'  the  brae, 

As  I  watch  the  great  harts  feeding,  nearer,  nearer  a'  the  day ! 

Oh,  to  hark  the  eagle  screaming,  sweeping,  ringing  round  the  sky ! — 

That's  a  bonnier  life  than  stumbling  owre  the  muck  to  hog  and  kye ! 

And  when  I  am  taen  and  hangit,  mither,  a  brittling  o'  my  deer, 
Ye'll  no  leave  your  bairn  to  the  corbie  craws  to  dangle  in  the  air? 
But  ye'll  send  up  my  twa  douce  brethren,  and  ye'll  steal  me  fra  the  tree, 
And  bury  me  up  on  the  brown,  brown  muirs,  where  I  aye  loved  to  be. 

Ye'll  bury  me  'twixt  the  brae  and  the  burn,  in  a  glen  far  away, 
Where  I  may  hear  the  heathcock  craw  and  the  great  harts  bray; 
And  if  my  ghaist  can  walk,  mither,  I'll  sit  glowering  at  the  sky, 
The  live  long  night  on  the  black  hill-sides  where  the  dun  deer  lie. 

The  ballad  ended,  but  the  rain  did  not ;  and  we  were  at  last 
fain  to  leave  our  shelter,  and  let  ourselves  be  blown  by  the  gale 
(the  difficulty  being  not  to  progress  forward,  but  to  keep  our  feet) 
back  to  the  shed  where  our  ponies  were  tied,  and  canter  home  to 
Lynmouth,  with  the  rain  cutting  our  faces  like  showers  of  peb 
bles,  and  our  little  mountain  ponies  staggering  before  the  wind,- 
with  their  long  tails  about  our  ears,  and  more  than  once,  if  Lon 
doners  will  believe  us,  blown  sheer  up  against  the  bank  by  some 
mad  gust,  which  rushed  perpendicularly,  not  down,  but  up,  the 
vast  chasms  of  the  glens  below. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE      COAST     LINE. 

IT  is  four  o'clock  on  a  May  morning,  and  Claude  and  ourselves 
are  just  embarking  on  board  a  Clovelly  trawling-skhT,  which,  hav 
ing  disposed  of  her  fish  at  various  ports  along  the  Channel,  is  about 
to  run  leisurely  homewards  with  an  ebb  tide,  and  a  soft  north- 


NORTH  DEVON.  237 

easterly  breeze ;  and  we  expect,  gentle  reader,  the  pleasure  of 
your  most  polished  and  intellectual  society.  If  you  should  prove 
a  bad  sailor,  which  Heaven  forfend,  you  may  still  lie  on  deck, 
and  listen — half-sleepy,  half-envious — to  our  rhapsodies,  and  to 
the  ruthless  clatter  of  our  knives  and  forks  :  but  we  will  forestall 
no  sorrows, — we  will  speak  no  words  but  of  good  omen. 

So  farewell,  fair  Lynmouth  ;  and  ye  mountain  storm-spirits, 
send  us  a  propitious  day,  and  dismiss  those  fantastic  clouds  which 
are  coquetting  with  your  thrones,  crawling  down  one  mountain 
face,  and  whirling  and  leaping  up  another,  in  wreaths  of  snow, 
and  dun,  and  amber,  pierced  every  minute  by  some  long,  glitter 
ing,  upward  arrow  from  the  level  sun,  which  gilds  gray  crags  and 
downs  a  thousand  feet  above  us,  while  underneath  the  mountain 
gorges  still  sleep  black  and  cold  in  shade. 

There,  they  have  heard  us  !  the  cap  rises  off  that  "  summer- 
house  hill,"  that  eight  hundred  feet  of  upright  wall,  which  seems 
ready  to  topple  down  into  the  nest  of  bemyrtled  cottages  at  its 
foot ;  and  as  we  sweep  out  into  the  deeper  water  the  last  mist- 
flake  streams  up  from  the  Foreland  and  vanishes  in  white  threads 
into  the  stainless  blue. 

"  Look  at  the  colours  of  that  Foreland ! "  cried  Claude,  in 
ecstasy.  "  The  vast,  simple  monotone  of  pearly  green,  broken 
only  at  intervals  by  blood-red  stains,  where  the  turf  has  slipped 
and  left  the  fresh  rock  bare,  and  all  glimmering  softly  through  a 
delicate  blue  haze,  like  the  bloom  on  a  half-ripened  plum  ! " 

"  And  look,  too,  how  the  gray  pebble  beach  is  already  dancing 
and  quivering  in  the  mirage  which  steams  up,  like  the  hot  breath 
of  a  limekiln,  from  the  drying  stones !  Talk  of  '  glazings  and 
scumblings,'  ye  artists !  and  bungle  at  them  as  you  will,  what  are 
they  to  Nature's  own  glazings,  deepening  every  instant  there  be 
hind  us  ?  " 

"  Mock  me  not.  I  have  walked  up  and  down  here  with  a 
humbled  and  a  broken  spirit,  and  had  nearly  forsworn  the  audac 
ity  of  painting  any  thing  beyond  a  beech  stem,  or  a  frond  of  fern." 

"The  little  infinite  in  them  would  have  baffled  you  just  as 
much  as  the  only  somewhat  bigger  infinite  of  the  hills  on  which 
they  grow." 

"  Confest :  and  so  farewell  to  unpaintable  Lynmouth  !  Fare 
well  to  the  charming  contrast  of  civilized  English  landscape-gar 
dening,  with  its  villas,  and  its  exotics,  and  its  evergreens,  thus 
strangely,  and  yet  harmoniously,  confronted  with  the  mad  chaos 
of  the  rocks  and  mountain-streams.  Those  grounds  of  Sir  Wil 
liam  Herries's  are  a  double  paradise,  the  wild  Eden  of  the  Past 
side  by  side  with  the  cultivated  Eden  of  the  Future.  How  its 
alternations  of  Art  and  Savagery  at  once  startle  and  relieve  the 


238  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

sense,  as  you  pass  suddenly  out  of  wildernesses  of  piled  boulders, 
and  torrent-shattered  trees,  and  the  roar  of  a  hundred  fern-fringed 
waterfalls,  into  '  trim  walks,  and  fragrant  alleys  green,'  and  the 
door  of  a  summer-house  transports  you  at  a  step  from  Richmond 
to  the  Alps.  Happy  he  who  '  possesses,'  as  the  world  calls  it, 
and  happier  still  he  whose  taste  could  organize,  that  fairy 
bower." 

So  he,  magniloquently,  as  was  his  wont ;  and  yet  his  declama 
tions  always  flowed  with  such  a  graceful  ease, — a  simple,  smiling 
earnestness, — an  unpractised  melody  of  voice,  that  what  would 
have  been  rant  from  other  lips,  from  his  showed  only  as  the 
healthy  enthusiasm  of  the  passionate,  all-seeing,  all-loving  artist. 

But  our  companion  the  reader,  has  been  some  time  gazing  up 
at  that  huge  boulder-strewn  hill-side  above  us,  and  wondering 
whether  the  fable  of  the  giants  be  not  true  after  all, — and  that 
"  Vale  of  Rocks,"  hanging  five  hundred  feet  in  air,  with  all  its 
crag-castles,  and  tottering  battlements,  and  colossal  crumbling 
idols,  and  great  blocks,  which  hang  sloping,  caught  in  act  to  fall, 
be  not  some  enormous  Cyclopean  temple  left  halt-disinterred. 

"  A  fragment  of  old  Chaos,"  said  Claude,  "  left  unorganized, — 
or,  perhaps,  the  waste  heap  of  the  world,  where,  after  the  rest  of 
England  had  been  made,  some  angel  put  up  a  notice  for  his  fel 
lows,  '  Dry  rubbish  shot  here.'  " 

"  Not  so,  unscientific  !  It  is  the  grandfather  of  hills, — a  fossil 
bone  of  some  old  continent,  which  stood  here  ages  before  England 
was.  And  the  great  earth-angel,  who  grinds  up  mountains  into 
paint,  as  you  do  bits  of  ochre,  for  his  '  Continental  Sketches,'  found 
in  it  the  materials  for  a  whole  dark  ground-tone  of  coal-measures, 
and  a  few  hundred  miles  of  warm  high-lights,  which  we  call  New 
Red  Sandstone. 

"And  what  a  sea-wall  they  are,  these  Exmore  hills!  Sheer 
upward  from  the  sea  a  thousand  feet  rises  the  mountain  range ; 
and  as  we  slide  and  stagger  lazily  along  before  the  dying  breeze, 
through  the  deep  water  which  never  leaves  the  cliff,  the  eye 
ranges,  almost  dizzy,  up  some  five  hundred  feet  of  rock,  dappled 
with  every  hue,  from  the  intense  black  of  the  tide  line,  through 
the  warm  green  and  brown  shadows,  out  of  which  the  horizontal 
cracks  of  the  strata,  and  the  loom  black,  and  the  breeding  gulls, 
show  like  lingering  snow-flakes  up  to  the  middle  cliff,  where  deli 
cate  grays  fade  into  pink,  pink  into  red,  red  into  glowing  purple, 
and  the  purple  is  streaked  with  glossy  ivy  wreaths,  and  black- 
green  yews  ;  and  all  the  choir  of  colours  stop  abruptly  on  the 
mid-hill,  to  give  place  to  one  yellowish-gray  sheet  of  upward 
down,  sweeping  smooth  and  unbroken,  except  by  a  lonely  stone, 
or  knot  of  clambering  sheep,  to  end  in  one  great  rounded  waving 


NORTH  DEVON.  239 

line,  sharp-cut  against  the  brilliant  blue.  The  sheep  hang  like 
white  daisies  upon  the  steep  hill-side,  and  a  solitary  falcon  rides  a 
speck  in  air,  yet  far  below  the  crest  of  that  tall  hill.  Now  he 
sinks  to  the  cliff  edge,  and  hangs  quivering,  supported  like  a  kite, 
by  the  pressure  of  his  breast  and  long-carved  wings,  against  the 
breeze. 

"There  he  hangs,  the  peregrine, — a  true  'falcon  gentle,'  'sharp- 
notched,  long-taloned,  crooked-winged,'  whose  uncles  and  cousins, 
ages  ago,  have  struck  at  roe  and  crane,  and  sat  upon  the  wrists 
of  kings.  And  now  he  is  full  proud  of  any  mouse  or  cliff-lark  ; 
like  an  old  Chingachgook,  last  of  the  Mohicans,  he  lingers  round 
'  the  hunting-field  of  his  fathers.' "  So  all  things  end. 

The  old  order  changeth,  giving  place  to  the  new; 

And  God  fulfils  himself  in  many  ways, 

Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world. 

"  Ay,  and  the  day  shall  come,"  said  Claude,  "  when  the  brows 
of  that  huge  High-Vere  shall  be  crowned  with  golden  wheat, 
and  every  rock-ledge  on  Trentishoe,  like  those  of  Petra  and  the 
Rhine,  support  its  garden-bed  of  artificial  soil." 

"  And  when,"  we  answered,  "  the  shingley  sides  of  that  great 
chasm  of  Headon's  Mouth  shall  be  clothed  with  the  white  mul 
berry,  and  the  summer  limestone-skiffs  shall  go  back  freighted 
with  fabrics  which  vie  with  the  finest  woof  of  Italy  and  Lyons." 

u  You  believe,  then,  in  Mrs.  Whitby  of  Lymington  ?  " 

"  Seeing  is  believing,  Claude  :  through  laughter,  and  failures, 
and  the  stupidity  of  half-barbarous  clods,  she  has  persevered  in 
her  silk-growing,  and  succeeded ;  and  we  should  like  to  afficher 
her  book  to  the  doors  of  every  west-country  squire." 

"  Better  require  them  to  pass  an  examination  in  it,  and  seve 
ral  other  better-known  things,  before  they  take  possession  of  their 
estates.  In  the  mean  time,  what  is  that  noble  conical  hill,  which 
has  increased  my  wonder  at  the  infinite  variety  of  beauty  which 
The  Spirit  can  produce  by  combinations  so  simple  as  a  few  gray 
stones  and  a  sheet  of  turf  ?  " 

"  The  Hangman." 

"  An  ominous  name.     What  is  its  history  ?  " 

"  Some  sheep-stealer,  they  say,  clambering  over  a  wall  with 
his  booty  slung  round  his  neck,  was  literally  hung  by  the  poor 
brute's  struggles,  and  found  days  after  on  the  mountain-side,  a 
blackened  corpse  suspended  on  one  side  of  the  wall,  with  the 

sheep  hanging  on  the  other,  and  the  ravens .  You  may  fill 

up  the  picture  for  yourself." 

But,  see,  as  we  round  the  Hangman,  what  a  change  of  scene  ! 
The  huge  square-blocked  sandstone  cliffs  dip  suddenly  under 
dark  slate-beds,  fantastically  bent  and  broken  by  primeval  earth- 


240  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

quakes.  Wooded  combes,  and  broken  ridges  of  rich  pasture- 
land,  wander  and  slope  towards  a  labyrinth  of  bush-fringed  coves, 
black  isolated  tide-rocks,  and  land-locked  harbours.  There  shines 
among  the  woods  the  castle  of  Watermouth,  on  its  lovely  little 
salt-water  loch,  the  safest  harbour  on  the  coast;  and  there  is 
Combe-Martin,  mile-long  man-stye,  which  seven  centuries  of 
fruitless  silver-mining,  and  of  the  right  (now  deservedly  lost)  of 
"  sending  a  talker  to  the  national  palaver,"  have  neither  cleansed 
nor  civilized.  Turn,  turn  thy  head  away,  dear  reader,  lest  even 
at  this  distance  some  foul  odour  taint  the  summer  airs,  and  com 
plete  the  misfortune  already  presaged  by  that  pale,  sad  face,  sick 
ening  in  the  burning  calm  !  For  this  great  sun-roasted  fire-brick 
of  the  Exmore  range  is  fairly  "  burning  up  the  breeze,"  and  we 
have  nothing  but  the  tide  to  drift  us  slowly  down  to  Ilfracombe. 

Now  we  open  Billage,  and  now  Hillsborough,  two  of  the  most 
picturesque  of  headlands  ;  see  how  their  huge  round  foreheads  of 
glistening  gray  shale  sink  down  into  two  dark,  jagged  moles,  run 
ning  far  out  to  seaward,  and  tapering  off,  each  into  a  long,  black 
horizontal  line,  vanishing  at  last  beneath  its  lace-fringe  of  restless 
hissing  foam.  How  grand  the  contrast  of  the  delicate  severe 
lightness  of  those  sea-lines,  with  the  vast  solid  mass  which  rests 
upon  them  !  Look,  too,  at  the  glaring  lights  and  the  Tartarean 
shadows  of  those  gloomy  chasms  and  caves,  which  the  tide  never 
leaves,  or  the  foot  of  man  explores  ;  and  hark,  at  every  rush  of 
the  long  ground-swell,  mysterious  mutterings,  solemn  sighs,  sud 
den  thunders,  as  of  a  pent-up  earthquake,  boom  out  of  them 
across  the  glassy  swell.  Look  at  those  blasts  of  delicate  vapour 
that  shoot  up  from  hidden  rifts,  and  hang  a  moment,  and  vanish ; 
and  those  green  columns  of  wave  which  rush  mast  high  up  the 
perpendicular  walls,  and  then  fall  back  and  outwards  in  a  water 
fall  of  foam,  lacing  the  black  rocks  with  a  thousand  snowy  streams. 
There  they  fall,  and  leap,  and  fall  again.  And  so  they  did  yes 
terday,  and  the  day  before, — and  so  they  did  centuries  ago,  when 
the  Danes  swept  past  them,  for  the  loss  of  the  magic  raven  flag, 
battle-worn,  and  sad  of  heart,  from  the  fight  at  Appledore,  to  sit 
down  and  starve  on  "  the  island  of  Bradanrelice,  which  men  call 
Flat  Holms  ! "  Ay,  and  even  so  they  leapt  and  fell,  before  a  sail 
gleamed  on  the  Severn  sea,  when  the  shark  and  the  ichthyosaur 
paddled  beneath  the  shade  of  tropic  forests, — now  scanty  turf 
and  golden  gorse.  And  so  they  will  leap  and  fall  on,  on,  through 
the  centuries  and  the  ages.  Oh  dim  abyss  of  Time,  into  which 
we  peer  shuddering,  wrhat  will  be  the  end  of  thee,  and  of  this 
ceaseless  coil  and  moan  of  waters  ?  Is  it  true,  that  when  thou 
shalt  be  no  more,  then,  too,  "  there  shall  be  no  more  sea ; "  and 
this  ocean  bed,  this  great  grave  of  fertility,  into  which  all  earth's 


NORTH  DEVON.  241 

wasted  riches  stream,  day  and  night,  from  hill  and  town,  shall  rise 
and  become  fruitful  soil,  corn-field  and  meadow-land  ;  and  earth 
shall  teem  as  thick  with  living  men,  as  bean-fields  with  the 
summer  bees  ?  What  a  consummation  !  At  least  there  is  One 
greater  than  sea,  or  time  :  and  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth  will  do 
right. 

But  there  is  Ilfracombe,  with  its  rock-walled  harbour,  its  little 
wood  of  masts  within,  its  white  terraces,  rambling  up  the  hills, 
and  its  capstone  sea- walk,  the  finest  "  marine  parade,"  as  flunky - 
dom  terms  it,  in  all  England,  except  that  splendid  Hoe  at  Ply 
mouth,  "  Lam  Goemagot,"  Gog-magog's  leap,  as  the  old  Britons 

called  it,  where  Corineus ,  but  no,  gentle  Editor,  we  will 

wander  no  more.  And  there  is  the  little  isolated  rock-chapel, 
where  seven  hundred  years  ago,  our  west-country  forefathers 
used  to  go  to  pray  St.  Nicholas  for  deliverance  from  shipwreck, 
— a  method  lovingly  regretted  by  Mr.  Titmarsh's  friend,  the 
Rev.  L.  Oriel,  of  St.  Waltheof 's,  as  a  "  pious  idea  of  the  Ages  of 
faith."  Claude,  however,  prefers  the  present  method  of  light 
houses  and  the  worthy  Trinity  Board,  as  more  godly,  and  faith 
ful,  as  well  as  more  useful ;  and,  we  suspect,  so  do  the  sailors 
themselves. 

But  our  reader  is  by  this  time  nearly  sick  of  the  roasting  calm, 
and  the  rolling  ground-swell,  and  the  smell  of  fish,  and  is  some 
what  sleepy  also,  between  early  rising  and  incoherent  sermons ; 
wherefore,  dear  reader,  we  advise  you  to  stay  and  recruit  your 
self  at  Ilfracombe,  before  you  proceed  further  with  your  self- 
elected  cicerone  on  the  grand  tour  of  North  Devon.  Believe  us, 
you  will  not  stir  from  the  place  for  a  month  at  least.  For  be 
sure,  if  you  are  sea-sick,  or  heart-sick,  or  pocket-sick  either,  there 
is  no  pleasanter  or  cheaper  place  of  cure  (to  indulge  in  a  puff,  of 
a  species  now  well-nigh  obsolete,  the  puff  honest  and  true)  than 
this  same  Ilfracombe,  with  its  quiet  nature  and  its  quiet  luxury, 
its  rock  fairy-land  and  its  sea-walks,  its  downs  and  combes,  its 
kind  people,  and,  if  possible,  still  kinder  climate,  which  combines 
the  soft  warmth  of  South  Devon  with  the  bracing  freshness  of 
the  Welsh  mountains  ;  where  winter  has  slipped  out  of  the  list 
of  the  seasons,  and  mother  Earth  makes  up  for  her  summer's 
luxury  by  fasting,  "not  in  sackcloth  and  ashes,  but  in  new  silk 
and  old  sack  ; "  and  instead  of  standing  three  months  chin  deep 
in  ice,  and  christening  great  snowballs  its  "  friend  and  family," 
as  St.  Fransis  of  Assizi  did  of  old,  knows  no  severer  asceticism 
than  tepid  shower-baths,  and  a  parasol  of  soft  grey  mist. 

So  farewell.  True,  you  have  seen  but  half  North  Devon. 
But,  alas  !  the  pages  of  Fraser  are  of  paper,  not  of  India-rubber ; 
and  when  men  write  of  places  which  they  love,  their  ink-stream 
11 


242  KINGSLEY'S    MISCELLANIES. 

is  as  the  letting  out  of  waters  ;  and  other  people  are  long-winded, 
besides  Nestor  and  Mr.  Chisholm  Anstey.  Wherefore  our  wise 
Editor,  that  intellectual  Soyer,  and  infallible  caterer  for  the  pub 
lic  appetite,  practised  to  foresee  afar  the  slightest  chance  of  an 
aesthetic  surfeit,  has  for  your  sakes  treated  us  as  schoolboys  treat 
slow-worms, — made  us  break  off  our  own  tail,  for  the  pleasure  of 
seeing  it  grow  again. 


PART  II. 

I.    MORTE. 

I  HAD  been  wandering  over  the  southern  side  of  Exmoor, 
marking  my  track  with  heaps  of  slaughtered  trout,  through  a 
country  which  owes  its  civilization  and  tillage  to  the  genius  of 
one  man,  who  has  found  stag-preserving  by  no  means  incompati 
ble  with  the  most  magnificent  agricultural  improvement,  among 
a  population  who  still  evince  an  unpleasant  partiality  for  cutting 
and  carrying  farmers'  crops  by  night  without  leave  or  license,  and 
for  housebreaking  after  the  true  classic  method  of  Athens,  by 
fairly  digging  holes  through  the  house  walls — a  little  nook  of 
primeval  savagery,  fast  reorganizing  itself  under  the  Gospel  and 
scientific  farming.  I  had  been  on  Dartmoor,  too  ;  but  of  that 
noble  mountain  range  so  much  has  been  said  and  sung  of  late, 
that  I  really  am  afraid  it  is  becoming  somewhat  cockney  and 
trite.  So  what  I  have  to  say  thereupon  may  well  wait  for 
another  opportunity. 

Opposite  me  at  the  Clarence  sat  Claude  Mellot,  just  beginning 
to  bloom  again  into  cheerfulness,  after  the  purgatory  of  the  pre 
vious  day  in  the  Channel  lop  and  the  Swansea  steamer,  his  port 
folio  stuffed  with  sketches  of  South  Wales,  which,  as  I  told  him, 
he  might  as  well  have  left  behind  him,  seeing  that  half-a-dozen 
of  Turner's  pictures  have  told  the  public  as  much  about  the 
scenery  of  Siluria  as  they  ever  need  know,  and  ten  times  more 
than  they  ever  will  understand. 

We  were  on  the  point  of  starting  for  Morte,  and  so  round  to 
Saunton  Court  and  the  sands  beyond  it,  where  a  Clovelly  traw 
ler,  which  I  had  chartered  for  the  occasion,  had  promised  to  send 
a  boat  on  shore  and  take  us  off,  provided  the  wind  lay  off  the 
land. 

But,  indeed,  the  sea  was  calm  as  glass,  the  sky  cloudless 
azure ;  and  the  doubt  was  not  whether  we  should  be  able  to  get 


NORTH  DEVON.  243 

on  board  through  the  surf,  but  whether,  having  got  on  board,  we 
should  not  lie  till  nightfall,  as  idle 

As  a  painted  ship 
Upon  a  painted  ocean. 

And  now  behold  us  on  our  way  up  lovely  combes,  with  their 
green  copses,  and  ridges  of  rock,  and  golden  furze,  fruit-laden  orch 
ards,  and  slopes  of  emerald  pasture,  pitched  as  steep  as  house- 
roofs,  where  the  red  long-horns  are  feeding,  with  their  tails  a 
yard  above  their  heads,  and  under  us,  seen  in  bird's-eye  view, 
the  ground-plans  of  the  little  snug  farms  and  homesteads  of  the 
Damnonii,  "dwellers  in  the  valley,"  as  we  West-countrymen 
were  called  of  old.  Now  we  are  leaving  them  far  below  us  ;  and 
the  blue  hazy  sea  is  showing  far  above  the  serrated  ridge  of  the 
Tors,  and  their  huge  bank  of  sunny  green ;  and  before  us  is  a 
desolate  table-land  of  rushy  pastures  and  mouldering  banks,  fes 
tooned  with  the  delicate  network  of  the  little  ivy-leaved  campa 
nula,  loveliest  of  British  wild-flowers,  fit  with  its  hair-like  stems 
and  tiny  bells  of  blue,  to  wreathe  the  temples  of  Titania.  Alas ! 
we  have  passed  out  of  the  world  into  limbus  patrum,  and  the 
region  of  ineffectually  and  incompleteness.  The  only  cultiva 
tors  here,  and  through  tens  of  thousands  of  acres  in  the  North  of 
Devon,  are  the  rook  and  mole ;  and  yet  the  land  is  rich  enough 
— the  fat  deep  crumbling  of  the  shale  and  iron-stone,  returning 
year  by  year  into  the  mud,  from  whence  it  hardened  ages  ago. 
There  are  scores  of  farms  of  far  worse  land  in  mid-England, 
under  "  a  four-course  shift,"  yielding  their  load  of  wheat  an  acre. 
When  will  this  land  do  as  much  ?  When  will  the  spirit  of  Smith 
of  Deanston,  and  Hewitt  Davies,  descend  on  North  Devon? 
When  will  that  true  captain  of  industry,  and  new  Theseus  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  Mr.  Warnes  of  Trimmingham,  teach  the  peo 
ple  here  to  annihilate  poor-rates  by  growing  flax  upon  some  of 
the  finest  flax  land,  and  in  the  finest  flax  climate,  that  we  have  in 
England  ?  The  shrewd  Cornishmen  of  Launceston  and  Bodmin 
have  awakened  long  ago  to  "  the  new  gospel  of  fertility."  When 
will  North  Devon  awake  ? 

"  When  landlords  and  farmers,"  said  Claude,  "at  last  acknowl 
edge  their  divine  vocation,  and  feel  it  a  noble  and  holy  duty  to 
produce  food  for  God's  people  of  England — when  they  learn  that 
to  grow  rushes  where  they  might  grow  corn,  ay,  to  grow  four 
quarters  of  wheat  where  they  might  grow  five,  is  to  sin  against 
God's  blessings  and  against  the  English  nation.  No  wonder  that 
sluggards  like  these  cry  out  for  protection — that  those  who  can 
not  take  care  of  the  land  feel  that  they  themselves  need  artificial 
care." 


244  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

"  We  will  not  talk  politics,  Claude.  The  present  ministry  has 
made  them  pro  tempore  an  extinct  science.  '  Let  the  dead  bury 
their  dead.'  The  social  questions  are  nowadays  becoming  far 
more  important  than  the  House  of  Commons  ones." 

"  There  does  seem  here  and  there,"  he  said,  "  some  sign  of 
improvement.  I  see  the  paring  plough  at  work  on  one  field  and 
another." 

"  Swift  goes  the  age,  and  slowly  crawls  improvement.  The 
greater  part  of  that  land  will  be  only  broken  up  to  be  exhausted 
by  corn-crop  after  corn-crop,  till  it  can  bear  no  more,  and  the 
very  manure  which  is  drawn  home  from  it  in  the  shape  of  a  few 
turnips  will  be  wasted  by  every  rain  of  heaven,  and  the  straw 
probably  used  to  mend  bad  places  in  the  road  with ;  while  the 
land  returns  to  twenty  years  of  worse  sterility  than  ever 

"  Veather  did  zo,  and  gramfer  did  zo,  and  why  shouldn't  Jean 
dothezame?"  ***** 

"  But  here  is  Morte  below  us.  *  The  little  gray  church  on  the 
windy  shore,'  which  once  belonged  to  William  de  Tracy,  one  of 
your  friend  Thomas  a  Becket's  murderers.  If  you  wish  to  vent 
your  wrath  against  those  who  cut  off  your  favourite  Saxon  hero, 
there  is  a  tomb  in  the  church  which  bears  De  Tracy's  name,  over 
which  rival  Dryasdusts  contend  fiercely  with  paper-arrows :  the 
one  party  asserting  that  he  became  a  priest,  and  died  here  in  the 
wilderness  ;  the  others,  that  the  tomb  is  of  later  date,  that  he 
fled  hence  to  Italy,  under  favour  of  a  certain  easy-going  Bishop 
of  Exeter,  and  died  penitent  and  duly  shriven,  according  to  the 
attestations  of  a  certain  or  uncertain  bishop  of  Cosenza." 

"  Peace  be  with  him  and  with  the  bishop  !  The  flight  to  Italy 
seems  a  very  needless  precaution  to  a  man  who  owned  this  cor 
ner  of  the  world.  A  bailiff  would  have  had  even  less  chance 
here  then  than  in  Connemara  a  hundred  years  ago." 

"  He  certainly  would  have  fed  the  crabs  and  rock-cod  in  two 
hours  after  his  arrival.  Nevertheless,  I  believe  the  Cosenza 
story  is  the  safer  one." 

"  Tweedledum  is  sometimes  slightly  superior  to  Tvveedledee. 
But  what  a  chaos  of  rock-ridges ! — old  starved  mother  Earth's 
bare-worn  ribs  and  joints  peeping  out  through  every  field  and 
down  ;  and  on  three  sides  of  us  the  sullen  thunder  of  the  unseen 
surge.  What  a  place  for  some  *  gloom-pampered  man '  to  sit 
and  misanthropize ! " 

"Morte,  says  the  Devonshire  proverb,  is  the  place  on  earth 
which  heaven  made  last,  and  the  devil  will  take  first." 

"  All  the  fitter  for  a  misanthrope.  But  where  are  the  trees  ? 
I  have  not  seen  one  for  the  last  four  miles." 

"  Nor  will  you  for  a  few  miles  more.     Whatever  will  grow 


NORTH   DEVON.  245 

here  (and  most  things  will)  they  will  not,  except,  at  least,  here 
after  the  sea-pine  of  the  Biscay  shore.  You  would  know  why, 
if  you  had  ever  felt  a  southwesterly  gale  here,  when  the  foam- 
flakes  are  flying  miles  inland,  and  you  are  fain  to  cling  breathless 
to  bank  and  bush,  if  you  want  to  get  one  look  at  those  black 
fields  of  shark's-tooth  tide-rocks,  champing  and  churning  the 
great  green  rollers  into  snow.  Wild  folk  are  these  here,  gather 
ers  of  shell-fish  and  laver,  and  merciless  to  wrecked  vessels, 
which  they  consider  as  their  own  by  immemorial  usage,  or  rather 
right  divine.  Significant,  how  an  agricultural  people  is  generally 
as  cruel  to  wrecked  seamen  as  a  fishing  one  is  merciful.  I  could 
tell  you  twenty  stories  of  the  baysmen  down  there  to  the  west 
ward  risking  themselves  like  very  heroes  to  save  strangers'  lives, 
and  beating  off  the  labouring  folk  who  swarmed  down  for  plun 
der  from  the  inland  hills." 

"  Knowledge,  you  see,  breeds  sympathy  and  love.  But  what 
a  merciless  coast !  " 

"  Hardly  a  winter  without  a  wreck  or  two.  You  see  there  lying 
about  the  timbers  of  more  than  one  tall  ship.  You  see,  too,  that 
black  rock  a-wash  far  out  at  sea,  apparently  a  submarine  outlier 
of  the  north  horn  of  this  vast  rock-amphitheatre  below  us.  That 
is  the  Morte  stone,  the  '  Death-rock,'  as  the  Normans  christened 
it  of  old ;  and  it  does  not  belie  its  name  even  now.  See  how, 
even  in  this  calm,  it  hurls  up  its  column  of  spray  at  every  wave ; 
and  then  conceive  being  entrapped  between  it  and  the  cliffs,  on 
some  blinding,  whirling  winter's  night,  when  the  land  is  shrouded 
thick  in  clouds,  and  the  roar  of  the  breakers  hardly  precedes  by 
a  minute  the  crash  of  your  bows  against  the  rocks." 

"  I  never  think,  on  principle,  of  things  so  painful,  and  yet  so 
irrelievable.  Yet  why  does  not  your  much-admired  Trinity 
House  erect  a  light  there  ?  " 

"  So  ask  the  sailors  ;  for  it  is  indeed  one  of  the  gateway-jambs 
of  the  Channel,  and  the  deep  water  and  the  line  of  coast  tempts 
all  craft  to  pass  as  close  to  it  as  possible." 

"  Look  at  the  noble  sheet  of  yellow  sand  below  us  now, 
banked  to  the  inland  with  sandhills  and  sunny  downs,  and  ending 
abruptly  at  the  foot  of  that  sombre  wall  of  slatehill,  which  runs 
out  like  a  huge  pier  into  the  sea  some  two  miles  off." 

"  That  is  Woollacombe  ;  but  here  on  our  right  is  a  sight  worth 
seeing.  Every  gully  and  creek  there  among  the  rocks  is  yellow, 
but  not  with  sand.  Those  are  shells,  the  sweepings  of  the  ocean 
bed  for  miles  around,  piled  there,  millions  upon  millions  yards 
deep,  in  every  stage  of  destruction.  There  they  lie  grinding  to 
dust ;  and  every  gale  brings  in  fresh  myriads  from  the  inexhausti 
ble  sea-world,  as  if  Death  could  be  never  tired  of  devouring,  or 


246  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

God  of  making.  The  brain  grows  dizzy  and  tired,  as  one's  feet 
crunch  over  the  endless  variety  of  their  forms — and  then  one 
recollects  that  every  one  of  them  has  been  a  living  thing — a 
whole  history  of  birth,  and  growth,  and  propagation,  and  death. 
Waste  it  cannot  be,  or  cruelty  on  the  part  of  the  Maker,  but 
why  this  infinite  development  of  life,  apparently  only  to  furnish 
out  of  it  now  and  then  a  cartload  of  shellsand  to  these  lazy 
farmers  ?  " 

"  After  all,  there  is  not  so  much  life  in  all  those  shells  put 
together  as  in  one  little  child,  and  it  may  die  the  hour  that  it  is 
born !  What  we  call  life  is  but  appearance ;  the  true  life 
belongs  only  to  spirits.  And  whether  or  not  we,  or  the  sea-shell 
there,  are  at  any  given  moment  helping  to  make  up  part  of  some 
pretty  little  pattern  in  this  kaleidoscope  called  earth ;  yet  '  in  the 
spirit  all  live  to  Him,  and  shall  do  so  for  ever." 

And  thereon  he  rambled  off  into  a  long  lecture  on  "  species- 
spirits,"  and  "  individual-spirits,"  and  "  personal-spirits,"  doubtless 
most  important.  But  I,  what  between  the  sun,  the  luncheon, 
and  the  metaphysic,  sank  into  soft  slumbers,  from  which  I  was 
only  awakened  by  the  carriage  stopping,  according  to  our  order, 
on  the  top  of  Saunton  hill. 

We  left  the  fly,  and  wandered  down  towards  the  old  gabled 
"  court,"  nestling  amid  huge  walnuts  in  its  southward  glen ; 
while  before  us  spread  a  panorama,  half  sea,  half  land,  than 
which,  perhaps  our  England  owns  no  lovelier. 

At  our  feet  was  a  sea  of  sand — for  the  half-mile  to  the  right 
smooth  as  a  floor,  bounded  by  a  broad  band  of  curling  waves, 
which  crept  slowly  shorewards  with  the  advancing  tide.  Right 
underneath  us  the  sand  was  drifted  for  miles  into  fantastic  hills, 
which  quivered  in  the  heat,  the  glaring  yellow  of  its  lights  check 
ered  by  delicate  pink  shadows  and  sheets  of  gray-green  bent. 
To  the  left  were  rich  alluvial  marshes,  covered  with  red  cattle 
sleeping  in  the  sun,  and  laced  with  creeks  and  flowery  dykes  ; 
and  here  and  there  a  scarlet  line,  which  gladdened  Claude's  eye 
as  being  "  a  bit  of  positive  colour  in  the  foreground,"  and  ours, 
because  they  were  draining-tiles.  Beyond  again,  two  broad 
tide-rivers,  spotted  with  white  and  red  brown  sails,  gleamed  like 
avenues  of  silver,  past  knots  of  gay  dwellings,  and  tall  lighthouses, 
and  church-towers,  and  wandered  each  on  its  own  road,  till  they 
vanished  among  the  wooded  hills.  On  the  eastern  horizon  the 
dark  range  of  Exmoor  sank  gradually  into  lower  and  more  broken 
ridges,  which  rolled  away,  woodland  beyond  woodland,  till  all 
outlines  seem  lost  in  purple  haze  ;  while,  far  beyond,  the  granite 
peaks  of  Dartmoor  hung  like  a  delicate  blue  cloud,  and  enticed 
the  eye  away  into  infinity.  From  thence,  as  our  eyes  swept 


NORTH  DEVON.  247 

round  the  horizon,  the  broken  hills  above  the  river's  mouth 
gradually  rose  into  the  table-land  of  the  "  barren  coal-measures  " 
some  ten  miles  off,— a  long  straight  wall  of  cliffs  which  bounded 
the  broad  bay,  buried  in  deepest  shadow,  except  where  the  open 
ing  of  some  glen  revealed  far  depths  of  sunlit  wood.  A  faint 
perpendicular  line  of  white  houses,  midway  along  the  range, 
marked  our  destination  ;  and  far  to  the  westward,  the  land  ended 
sheer  and  suddenly  at  the  cliffs  of  Hartland,  the  "  Promontory 
of  Hercules,"  as  the  old  Romans  called  it,  to  reappear  some  ten 
miles  out  in  the  Atlantic,  in  the  blue  flat-topped  island  of  Lundy, 
so  exactly  similar  in  height  and  form  to  the  opposite  cape,  that 
it  required  no  scientific  imagination  to  supply  the  vast  gap 
which  the  primeval  currents  hud  sawn  out.  There  it  all  lay  be 
neath  us  like  a  map  ;  its  thousand  hues  toned  down  harmoniously 
into  each  other  by  the  summer  haze,  and  "  the  eye  was  not  filled 
with  seeing,"  nor  the  spirit  with  the  intoxicating  sight  of  infi 
nitely  various  life  and  form  in  perfectest  repose. 

I  was  the  first  to  break  the  silence. 

"  Claude,  well-beloved,  will  you  not  sketch  a  little  ?  " 

No  answer. 

"  Not  even  rhapsodize  ?  call  it  <  lovely,  exquisite,  grand,  ma 
jestic  ? '  There  are  plenty  of  such  words  in  wordings'  mouths 

not  a  young  lady  but  would  burst  out  with  some  enthusiastic 

commonplace  at  such  a  sight — surely  one  or  other  of  them  must 
be  appropriate." 

"  Silence,  profane  !  and  take  me  away  from  this.  Let  us  go 
down,  and  hide  our  stupidities  among  those  sandhills,  and  so  for 
get  the  whole.  What  use  standing  here  to  be  maddened  by  this 
tantalizing  earth-spirit,  who  shows  us  such  glorious  things,  and 
will  not  tell  us  what  they  mean  ?  " 

So  down  we  went  upon  the  "burrows"  among  the  sands, 
which  hid  from  us  every  object  but  their  own  chaotic  curves  and 
mounds.  Above,  a  hundred  skylarks  made  the  air  ring  with 
carollings  ;  strange  and  gaudy  plants  flecked  the  waste  round 
us,  and  myriads  of  the  great  spurge-moth,  only  found  upon  those 
burrows,  whirred  like  humming-birds  over  our  heads,  or  hung 
poised  with  their  pink  and  grey  wings  outspread  on  the  tall  stalks 
of  marram  grass.  All  at  once  a  cloud  hid  the  sun,  and  a  sum 
mer  whirlwind,  presage  of  the  thunder-storm,  swept  past  us, 
carrying  up  with  it  a  column  of  dry  sand,  and  rattling  the  dry 
bents  over  our  heads. 

"  What  a  chill,  doleful  sigh  comes  from  those  reeds ! "  said 
Claude.  "  I  can  conceive  this  desert,  beneath  a  driving  winter's 
sky  instead  of  this  burning  azure,  one  of  the  most  desolate  places 
on  the  earth." 


248  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

"It  inspired,  once  at  least,"  I  answered,  "verses  melancholy 
enough.  The  man  who  wrote  them  would  not  finish  them  ;  for 
when  the  sadness  was  past,  he  thought  it  a  sin,  as  I  do,  to  turn 
on  the  '  Werterian  '  tap  of  malice  prepense.  But  you  shall 
have  the  verses,  to  cool  you,  as  we  lie  roasting  here,  with  a  few 
wintry  thoughts." 

Wearily  stretches  the  sand  to  the  surge,  and  the  surge  to  the  cloudland  ; 

Wearily  onward  I  ride,  watching  the  wild  wave  alone. 

Not  as  of  old,  like  Homeric  Achilles,  nvdel  yaiw, 

Joyous  knight-errant  of  God,  thirsting  for  labour  and  strife; 

No  more  on  magical  steed  borne  free  through  the  regions  of  ether, 

But,  like  the  poor  hack  I  ride,  selling  my  sinew  for  gold. 

Fruit-bearing  autum  is  gone;  let  the  sad  quiet  winter  hang  o'er  me  — 

What  were  the  spring  to  a  soul  laden  with  sorrow  and  shame  ? 

Green  leaves  would  fret  me  with  beauty;  my  heart  has  no  time  to  bepraise  them; 

Gray  rock,  bough,  surge,  cloud  —  these  wake  no  yearnings  within, 

Sing  not,  thou  skylark  above!  even  angels  pass  hushed  by  the  weeper! 

Scream  on,  ye  sea-fowl  !  my  heart  echoes  your  desolate  cry. 

Sweep  the  dry  sand  on,  thou  sad  wind,  to  drift  o'er  the  shell  and  the  sea-weed  ; 

Sea-weed  and  shell,  like  my  dreams,  swept  down  the  pitiless  tide. 

Just  is  the  wave  which  uptore  us;  'tis  Nature's  own  law  which  condemns  us; 

Woe  to  the  weak  who,  in  pride,  build  on  the  faith  of  the  sand! 

Joy  to  the  oak  of  the  mountain,  he  trusts  to  the  might  of  the  rock-clefts; 

Deeply  he  mines,  and  in  peace  feeds  on  the  wealth  of  the  stone. 


"  Amen  !  "  answered  Claude  ;  "  and  health  and  long  life,  in 
spite  of  all  false  quantities,  to  the  exquisite  old  elegiac  metre, 
like,  as  Coleridge  says,  — 

The  rise  of  the  fountain's  silvery  column, 

In  the  pentameter  aye  falling  in  melody  back. 

But  I  hear  a  halloo  from  the  shore  ;  there  are  our  boatmen  wait 
ing  for  us." 

"Ay,  desolate  enough,"  I  said,  as  we  walked  down  beyond  the 
tide-mark,  over  the  vast  fields  of  ribbed  and  splashy  sands, 
"when  the  dead  shells  are  rolling  and  crawling  up  the  beach 
in  wreaths  before  the  gale,  with  a  ghastly  rattle  as  of  the  dry 
bones  in  the  '  Valley  of  Vision,'  and  when  not  a  flower  shows  on 
that  sandcliff,  which  is  now  one  broad  bed  of  yellow,  scarlet,  and 
azure." 

"  That  is  the  first  spot  in  England,"  said  Claude,  "  except,  of 
course,  '  the  meads  of  golden  king-cups,'  where  I  have  seen  wild 
flowers  give  a  tone  to  the  colouring  of  the  whole  landscape,  as 
they  are  said  to  do  in  the  prairies  of  Texas.  And  look  how 
flowers  and  cliff  are  both  glowing  in  a  warm  green  haze,  like 
that  of  Cuyp's  wonderful  sandcliff  picture  in  the  Dulwich  Gallery, 
wonderful,  as  I  think,  and  true  —  let  Mr.  Rut-kin  revile  it  as 
much  as  he  will." 


NORTH  DEVON.  249 

"  Strange,  that  you  should  have  quoted  that  picture  here ;  its 
curious  resemblance  to  this  very  place  first  awoke  in  me,  years 
ago,  a  living  interest  in  landscape-painting.  But  look  there ; 
even  in  these  grand  summer  days  there  is  a  sight  before  us  sad 
enough.  There  are  the  ribs  of  some  ill-fated  ship,  a  man-of- 
war,  too,  as  the  story  goes,  standing  like  huge  black  fangs,  half- 
buried  in  the  sand.  And  off  what  are  those  two  ravens  rising, 
stirring  up  with  their  great  obscene  wings  a  sickly,  putrescent 
odour  ?  A  corpse  ?  " 

No,  it  was  not  a  corpse  ;  but  the  token  of  many  corpses.  A 
fragment  of  some  ship  ;  its  gay  green  paint  and  half-effaced  gild 
ing  contrasting  mockingly  with  the  long  ugly  feathered  barnacle- 
shells,  which  clustered  on  it,  rotting  into  slime  beneath  the  sun, 
and  torn  and  scattered  by  the  greedy  beaks  of  the  ravens. 

"  In  what  tropic  tornado,  or  on  what  coral-key  of  the  Bahamas, 
months  ago,  to  judge  by  those  barnacles,  did  that  tall  ship  go 
down  ?  How  long  has  this  scrap  of  wreck  gone  wandering  down 
the  Gulf-stream,  from  Newfoundland  to  the  Azores,  from  the 
Azores  to  Biscay,  from  Biscay  hitherward  on  its  homeless  voyage 
past  the  Norwegian  shore  ?  And  who  were  all  those  living  men 
who  '  went  down  to  Hades,  even  many  stalwart  souls  of  heroes,' 
to  give  no  sign  until  the  sea  shall  render  up  her  dead  ?  " 

"  And  every  one  of  them,"  said  Claude,  "  had  a  father,  and 
mother ! — a  wife,  perhaps,  and  children,  waiting  for  him  ! — at 
least  a  whole  human  life,  childhood,  boyhood,  manhood,  in  him ! 
All  those  years  of  toil  and  education,  to  get  him  so  far  on  his 
life-voyage  ;  and  here  is  the  end  thereof!  " 

"  Say  rather,  the  beginning  thereof,  Claude,"  we  answered, 
stepping  into  the  boat.  "  This  wreck  is  but  a  torn  scrap  of  the 
chrysalis-cocoon  ;  we  may  meet  the  butterflies  themselves  here 
after." 

*  *  *  *  * 

"  And  now  we  are  on  board ;  and  alas  !  some  time  before  the 
breeze  will  be  so.  Take  care  of  that  huge  boom  landsman  Claude, 
swaying  and  sweeping  backwards  and  forwards  across  the  deck, 
unless  you  wish  to  be  knocked  overboard.  Take  care,  too,  of 
that  loose  rope's  end,  unless  you  wish  to  have  your  eyes  cut  out. 
Take  my  advice,  lie  down  here  across  the  deck,  as  I  am  doing. 
Cover  yourself  with  great  coats,  like  an  Irishman,  to  keep  your 
self  cool,  and  let  us  meditate  a  little  on  this  strange  thing,  and 
strange  place,  which  holds  us  now. 

"  Look  at  those  spars,  how  they  creak  and  groan  with  every 

heave  of  the  long  glassy  swell.    How  those  sails  Hap,  and  thunder, 

and  rage,  with  useless  outcries  and  struggles — only  because  they 

are  idle.     Let  the  wind  take  them,  and  they  will  be   steady, 

11* 


250  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

silent  in  an  instant — their  deafening,  dissonant  grumbling  ex 
changed  for  the  soft  victorious  song  of  the  breeze  through  the 
rigging,  musical,  self-contented,  as  of  bird  on  bough.  So  it  is 
through  life,  Claude  ;  there  is  no  true  rest  but  labour.  '  No  true 
misery,'  as  Carlyle  says,  '  but  in  that  of  not  being  able  to  work.' 
You  may  call  it  a  pretty  conceit.  I  call  it  a  great  world-wide 
law,  which  reaches  from  earth  to  heaven.  Whatever  the  Preacher 
may  have  thought  it  in  a  moment  of  despondency,  what  is  it  but 
a  blessing  that '  sun,  and  wind,  and  rivers,  and  ocean,'  as  he  says, 
and  *  all  things,  are  full  of  labour — man  cannot  utter  it.'  This 
sea  which  bears  us  would  rot  and  poison,  did  it  not  sweep  in  and 
out  here  twice  a-day  in  swift,  refreshing  current ;  nay,  more,  in 
the  very  water  which  laps  against  our  bows  troops  of  glossy- 
limbed  negro  girls  may  have  hunted  the  purblind  shark  in  West 
Indian  harbours,  beneath  glaring  white-walled  towns,  with  their 
rows  of  green  jalousies,  and  cocoa-nuts,  and  shaddock  groves. 
For  on  those  white  sands  there  to  our  left,  year  by  year,  are 
washed  up  foreign  canes,  cassia  beans,  and  tropic  seeds  ;  and 
sometimes,  too,  the  tropic  ocean  snails,  with  their  fragile  shells 
of  amethystine  blue,  come  floating  in  mysteriously  in  fleets  from 
the  far  west  out  of  the  passing  Gulf-stream,  where  they  have 
been  sailing  out  their  little  life,  never  touching  shore  or  ground, 
but  buoyed  each  by  his  cluster  of  air-bubbles,  pumped  in  at  will 
under  the  skin  of  his  tiny  foot,  by  some  cunning  machinery  of 
valves — small  creatures  truly,  but  very  wonderful  to  men  who 
have  learned  to  reverence  not  merely  the  size  of  things,  but 
the  wisdom  of  their  idea, — raising  strange  longings  and  dreams 
about  that  submarine  ocean  world  which  stretches,  teeming  with 
richer  life  than  this  terrestrial  one,  away,  away  there  west 
ward,  down  the  path  of  the  sun,  toward  the  future  centre  of  the 
world's  destiny. 

"  Wonderful  ocean-world  !  three  fifths  of  our  planet !  Can  it 
be  true  that  no  rational  beings  are  denizens  there  ?  Science  is 
severely  silent — having  as  yet  seen  no  mermaids — our  captain 
there  forward  is  not  silent — if  he  has  not  seen  them,  plenty  of  his 
friends  have.  The  young  man  here  has  been  just  telling  me 
that  it  was  only  last  month  one  followed  a  West  Indiaman  right 
across  the  Atlantic.  '  For,'  says  he,  '  there  must  be  mermaids, 
and  such-like.  Do  you  think  God  would  have  made  all  that 
there  water  only  for  the  herrings  and  mackerel  ? ' ' 

We  do  not  know,  Tom;  but  we,  too,  suspect  not;  and  we  do 
know  that  honest  men's  guesses  are  sometimes  found  by  science 
to  have  been  prophecies,  and  that  there  is  no  smoke  without  fire, 
and  few  universal  legends  without  their  nucleus  of  fact.  After 
all,  those  sea-ladies  are  too  lovely  a  dream  to  part  with  in  a 


NORTH  DEVON.  251 

hurry,  at  the  mere  despotic  fiat  of  stern  old  Dame  Analysis, 
divine  and  reverend  as  she  is.  Why,  like  Keats's  Lamia, 

Must  all  charms  flee 
At  the  mere  touch  of  cold  Philosophy, 

who  will  not  even  condescend  to  be  awe-struck  at  the  new  won 
ders  which  she  herself  reveals  daily  ?  Perhaps,  too,  according 
to  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  great  dictum,  that  each  man  must  be 
the  best  judge  in  his  own  profession, — sailors  may  know  best 
whether  mermaids  exist  or  not.  Besides,  was  it  not  here  on 
Croyde  Sands,  abreast  of  us,  this  very  last  summer,  that  a  maiden 
— by  which  beautiful  old  word  West-country  people  still  call 
young  girls — was  followed  up  the  shore  by  a  mermaid  who 
issued  from  the  breakers,  green-haired,  golden-combed,  and  all ; 
and,  fleeing  home,  took  to  her  bed  and  died,  poor  thing  !  of  sheer 
terror  in  the  course  of  a  few  days,  persisting  in  her  account  of 
the  monster  ?  True,  the  mermaid  may  have  been  an  overgrown 
Lundy  Island  seal,  carried  out  of  his  usual  haunts  by  spring 
tides  and  a  school  of  fish.  Be  it  .so.  Lundy  and  its  seals  are 
wonderful  enough  in  all  reason  to  thinking  men,  as  it  looms  up 
there  out  of  the  Atlantic  with  its  two  great  square  headlands,  not 
twenty  miles  from  us,  in  the  white  summer  haze.  We  will  go 
there  some  day,  Claude,  and  pick  up  a  wild  tale  or  two  about  it, 
which  we  will  some  day  report  also  to  the  readers  of  Fraser, 
if  time  and  space  ("  No  gods,"  as  Lange  says,  but  very  stubborn, 
unyielding  brute  Titans  nevertheless)  allow  us. 

But,  lo  !  a  black  line  creeps  up  the  western  horizon.  Tom, 
gesticulating,  swears  that  he  sees  "  a  billow  break."  True,  there 
they  come  ;  the  great  white  horses,  that  "  champ,  and  chafe,  and 
toss  in  the  spray."  That  long-becalmed  trawler  to  seaward  fills, 
and  heels  over,  and  begins  to  tug  and  leap,  like  an  impatient 
horse,  at  the  weight  of  her  heavy  trawl.  Five  minutes  more, 
and  the  breeze  will  be  down  upon  us.  The  young  men  whistle 
openly  to  woo  it ;  the  old  father  thinks  such  a  superstition  some 
what  beneath  both  his  years  and  his  religion,  but  cannot  help 
pursing  up  his  lips  into  a  sly  "  whe-eugh  "  when  he  has  got  well 
forward  out  of  sight. 

*  *  *  * 

Five  long  minutes  ;  there  is  a  breath  of  air ;  a  soft,  distant 
murmur  ;  the  white  horses  curve  their  necks,  and  dive  and  van 
ish,  and  rise  again  like  snowy  porpoises,  nearer,  and  nearer,  and 
nearer.  Father  and  sons  are  struggling  with  that  raving,  riot 
ous,  drunken  squaresail  forward  ;  while  we,  according  to  our 
weakness,  haul  away  upon  the  mainsheet. 

When  will  it  come  ?  It  is  dying  back — sliding  past  us.  "  Hope 


252  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

deferred  maketh  the  heart  sick."  No,  louder  and  nearer  swells 
"  the  voice  of  many  waters,"  "  the  countless  laugh  of  ocean," 
like  the  mirth  of  ten  thousand  girls,  before  us,  behind  us,  round 
us  ;  and  the  oily  swells  darken  into  crisp  velvet-green,  till  the 
air  strikes  us  and  heels  us  over,  and  leaping,  plunging,  thrash 
ing  our  bows  into  the  seas,  we  spring  away  close-hauled  upon 
the  ever-freshening  breeze,  and  Claude  is  holding  on  by  ropes 
and  bulwarks,  and  I,  whose  "sea-legs"  have  not  yet  forgot 
their  craft,  am  swinging  like  a  pendulum  as  I  pace  the  deck, 
enjoying,  as  the  Norse  vikings  would  have  called  it,  "  the  gallop 
of  the  flying  sea-horse,  and  the  shiver  of  her  tawny  wings." 

Exquisite  motion  !  more  maddening  than  the  smooth  floating 
stride  of  the  race-horse,  or  the  crash  of  the  thorn-hedges  before 
the  stalwart  hunter,  or  the  swraying  of  the  fir-boughs  in  the  gale, 
when  we  used  to  climb  as  schoolboys  after  the  lofty  hawk's-nest ; 
but  not  so  maddening  as  the  new  motion  of  our  age — the  rush  of 
the  express-train  on  the  Great  Western,  when  the  live  iron  pants, 
and  leaps,  and  roars,  through  the  long  chalk  cutting,  and  white 
mounds  gleam  cold  a  moment  against  the  sky  and  vanish ;  and 
rocks,  and  grass,  and  bushes,  fleet  by  in  dim  blended  lines ;  and 
the  long  hedges  revolve  like  the  spokes  of  a  gigantic  wheel ;  and 
far  below,  meadows,  and  streams,  and  homesteads,  with  all  their 
lazy  auld-warld  life  open  for  an  instant,  and  then  rush  away  ! 
and  awe-struck,  silent,  choked  with  the  mingled  sense  of  pride 
and  helplessness,  we  are  swept  on  by  that  great  pulse  of  Eng 
land's  life-blood,  rushing  down  her  iron  veins ;  and  dimly  out 
of  the  future  looms  the  fulfilment  of  our  primaeval  mission,  to 
conquer  and  subdue  the  earth, — and  space,  too,  and  time, 
and  all  things, — even,  hardest  of  all  tasks,  yourselves,  my  cun 
ning  brothers ;  ever  learning  some  fresh  lesson,  except  that 
hardest  one  of  all,  that  it  is  the  Spirit  of  God  which  giveth  you 
understanding. 

"  Yes,  great  railroads,  and  great  railroad  age,  who  would  ex 
change  you,  with  all  your  sins,  for  any  other  time  ?  For  swift 
as  rushes  matter,  more  swiftly  rushes  mind, — more  swiftly  still 
rushes  the  heavenly  dawn  up  the  eastern  sky.  *  The  night  is  far 
spent,  the  day  is  at  hand.'  « Blessed  is  that  servant  whom  his 
Lord,  when  he  cometh,  shall  find  watching  ! '  " 

"  But  come,  my  poor  Claude,  I  see  you  are  too  sick  for  such 
deep  subjects,  so  let  us  while  away  the  time  by  picking  the 
brains  of  this  tall,  handsome  boy  at  the  helm,  who  is  humming  a 
love-song  to  himself  sotto  voce,  lest  it  should  be  overheard  by  the 
gray-headed  father,  who  is  forward,  poring  over  his  Wesleyan 
hymn-book.  He  will  have  something  to  tell  you  ;  he  has  a  soul 
in  him  looking  out  of  those  wild  dark  eyes,  and  delicate  aquiline 


NORTH  DEVON.  253 

features  of  his.  He  is  no  spade-drudge  or  bullet-headed  Saxon 
clod ;  he  has  in  his  veins  the  blood  of  Danish  rovers  and  pas 
sionate  southern  Milesians,  who  came  hither  from  Teffrobani, 
the  Isle  of  Summer,  as  the  old  Fenic  myths  inform  us.  Come 
and  chat  with  him.  You  dare  not  stir  ?  Well,  perhaps  you 
are  in  the  right.  I  shall  go  and  fraternize,  and  bring  you  re 
ports.  ***** 

"  Well,  he  has  been,  at  all  events,  '  up  the  Straits,'  as  the 
Mediterranean  voyage  is  called  here,  and  seen  '  Palermy '  and 
the  Sicilians.  But  for  his  imagination,  I  confess  that  what  seems 
to  have  struck  it  most  was  that  it  was  a  fine  place  for  Jack,  for 
a  man  could  get  mools  there  for  a  matter  of  three  half  pence 
a-day." 

"  And  was  that  all  you  got  out  of  him  ?  "  asked  Claude,  sickly 
and  sulkily. 

"  Oh,  you  must  not  forget  the  halo  of  glory  and  excitement 
which  in  a  sailor's  eyes  surrounds  the  delights  of  horseback  ! 
But  he  gave  me  besides  a  long  glowing  account  of  the  catechism 
which  they  had  there,  three  quarters  of  a  mile  long." 

"  Pope  Pius's  Catechism,  I  suppose  ?  " 

"  So  thought  I,  at  first ;  but  it  appeared  that  all  the  dead  of 
the  city  were  arranged  therein,  dried  and  dressed  out  in  their 
finest  clothes,  '  every  sect  and  age,'  as  Tom  said,  '  by  itself,  as 
natural  as  life  ; '  whence  I  opine  that  he  means  some  catacombs 
or  other." 

Poor  Claude  could  not  even  get  up  a  laugh ;  but  his  sorrows 
were  coming  swiftly  to  an  end.  The  rock  clefts  grew  sharper 
and  sharper  before  us.  The  soft  masses  of  the  huge  bank  of 
wooded  cliff  rose  higher  and  higher.  The  white  houses  of 
Clovelly,  piled  stair  above  stair  up  the  rocks,  gleamed  more 
and  more  brightly  out  of  the  green  round  bosoms  of  the  forest, 
as  we  shut  in  headland  after  headland ;  and  one  tall  conical  rock 
after  another  darkened  with  its  black  pyramid  the  bright  orb  of 
the  setting  sun.  Soon  we  began  to  hear  the  soft  murmur  of  the 
snowy  surf  line,  then  the  merry  voices  of  the  children  along  the 
shore ;  and  running  straight  for  the  cliff-foot  beneath  a  towering 
wall  of  mountain  we  slipped  into  the  little  pier,  from  whence  the 
red-sailed  herring-boats  were  swarming  forth  like  bees  out  of  a 
hive,  full  of  gay  handsome  faces,  and  all  the  busy  blue-jacketed 
lii'e  of  seaport  towns,  to  their  night's  fishing  in  the  bay. 

II.   CLOVELLY. 

A  couple  of  days  had  passed,  and  I  was  crawling  up  the 
paved  stairs  inaccessible  to  cart  or  carriage,  which  are  flatteringly 
denominated  "  Clovelly  Street,"  a  landing-net  full  of  shells  in  one 


254  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

hand,  and  a  couple  of  mackerel  lines  in  the  other ;  behind  me  a 
sheer  descent,  roof  below  roof,  at  an  angle  of  75°,  to  the  pier 
and  bay,  200  feet  below,  and  in  front  of  me,  another  hundred 
feet  above,  a  green  amphitheatre  of  oak,  and  ash,  and  larch, 
shutting  out  all  but  a  narrow  slip  of  sky,  across  which  the  low, 
soft,  formless  mist,  was  crawling,  opening  every  instant  to  show 
some  gap  of  intense  dark  rainy  blue,  and  send  down  a  hot  vapor 
ous  gleam  of  sunshine  upon  the  white  cottages,  with  their  gray 
steaming  roofs,  and  bright  green  railings,  packed  one  above 
another  upon  the  ledges  of  the  cliff;  and  on  the  tall  tree-fuchsias 
and  gaudy  dahlias  in  the  little  scraps  of  court-yard,  calling  the 
rich  faint  odour  out  of  the  verbenas  and  jessamines,  and,  alas ! 
out  of  the  herring-heads  and  tails,  also,  as  they  lay  in  the  rivulet ; 
and  lighting  up  the  wings  of  the  gorgeous  butterflies,  almost 
unknown  in  our  colder  eastern  climate,  which  fluttered  from 
woodland  down  to  garden,  and  from  garden  up  to  woodland,  and 
seemed  to  form  the  connecting  link  between  that  swarming  hive 
of  human  industry  and  the  deep  wild  woods  in  which  it  was 
embosomed.  So  up  I  was  crawling,  to  dine  off  gurnards  of  my 
own  catching, — excellent  fish,  despised  by  deluded  Cockneys, 
who  fancy  that  because  its  head  is  large  and  prickly,  therefore 
its  flesh  is  not  as  firm,  and  sweet,  and  white,  as  that  of  any  cod 
who  ever  gobbled  shell-fish, — when  down  the  stair  front  of  me, 
greasy  as  ice  from  the  daily  shower,  came,  slipping  and  stagger 
ing,  my  friend  Claude,  armed  with  camp-stool  and  portfolio. 

"Where  have  you  been  wandering  to-day?"  Tasked.  "Have 
you  yet  been  as  far  as  the  park,  which,  as  I  told  you,  would  sup 
ply  such  endless  subjects  for  your  pencil  ?  " 

"  Not  I.  I  have  been  roaming  up  and  down  this  same  i  New 
Road '  above  us,  and  find  there  materials  for  a  good  week's  more 
work,  if  I  could  afford  it.  Indeed,  it  was  only  to-day,  for  the 
first  time,  that  I  got  as  far  as  the  lodge  at  the  end  of  it,  and  then 
was  glad  enough  to  turn  back,  shuddering  at  the  first  glimpse  of 
the  flat,  dreary  moorland  beyond, — as  Adam  may  have  turned 
back  into  Eden  after  a  peep  out  of  the  gates  of  Paradise." 

"  You  should  have  taken  courage,  and  gone  a  half-mile  fur 
ther, — to  the  furze-grown  ruins  of  a  great  Roman  camp,  which 
gives  its  name  to  the  place,  '  Clovelly,' —  Vallum  Clausum,  or 
Vattis  Clausa,  as  antiquarians  derive  it ;  perhaps,  '  the  hidden 
camp,'  or  glen, — perhaps  something  else.  Who  cares  ?  The 
old  Romans  were  there,  at  least,  ten  thousand  strong ;  and  some 
sentimental  tribune  or  other  of  them  had  taste  enough  to  perch 
his  summer-house  out  on  a  comical  point  of  the  Hartland  Cliffs, 
now  tumbling  into  the  sea,  tessellated  pavement,  baths,  and  all. 
And  strange  work,  I  doubt  not,  went  on  in  that  lonely  nook, 


NOETH  DEVON.  255 

looking  out  over  the  Atlantic  swell, — nights  and  days  fit  for 
Petronius's  own  pen,  among  a  seraglio  of  dark  Celtic  beauties. 
It  has  been — perhaps  it  was  well  that  it  should  be  ;  and  even  in 
it  there  was  a  use  and  meaning,  doubt  not,  else  why  was  it  per 
mitted  ?  But  they  are  past  like  a  dream,  those  ten  thousand 
stalwart  men,  who  looked  far  and  wide  over  the  Damnonian 
moors  from  a  station  which  would  be,  even  in  these  days,  a  first- 
rate  military  position.  Gone,  too,  are  the  old  Saxon  Franklins 
who  succeeded.  Old  Wrengils,  or  some  such  name,  whoever  he 
was,  at  last  found  some  one's  bill  too  hard  for  his  brainpan  ;  and 
there  he  lies  on  the  hill  above,  in  his  *  barrow '  of  Wrinklebury. 
And  gone,  too,  the  gay  Norman  squire,  who,  as  tradition  says, 
kept  his  fair  lady  in  the  old  watchtower,  on  the  highest  point  of 
the  White  Cliff, — '  Gallantry  Bower,'  as  they  call  it  to  this  day, 
now  a  mere  ring  of  turf-covered  stones,  and  a  few  low  stunted 
oaks,  shorn  by  the  Atlantic  blasts  into  the  shape  of  two  huge 
cannon,  which  form  a  favourite  landmark  for  the  fishermen  of 
the  bay.  Gone  they  all  are,  Cymry  and  Roman,  Saxon  and 
Norman  ;  and  upon  the  ruins  of  their  accumulated  labour  we 
stand  here.  Each  of  them  had  his  use, — planted  a  few  more 
trees  or  cleared  a  few  more,  tilled  a  fresh  scrap  of  down,  organ 
ized  a  scrap  more  of  chaos.  Who  dare  wish  the  tide  of  improve 
ment,  which  has  been  flowing  for  nineteen  centuries,  swifter  and 
swifter  still  as  it  goes  on,  to  stop,  just  because  it  is  not  convenient 
to  us  just  now  to  move  on  ?  It  will  not  take  another  nineteen 
hundred  years,  be  sure,  to  make  even  this  lovely  nook  as  superior 
to  what  it  is  now,  as  it  is  now  to  the  little  knot  of  fishing-huts 
where  naked  Britons  peeped  out,  trembling,  at  the  iron  tramp  of 
each  insolent  legionary  from  the  camp  above.  It  will  not  take 
another  nineteen  hundred  years  to  develop  the  capabilities  of 
this  place, — to  make  it  the  finest  fishery  in  England  next  to 
Torbay, — the  only  safe  harbour  of  refuge  for  West  Indiamen, 
along  sixty  miles  of  ruthless  coast,  and  a  commercial  centre  for 
a  vast  tract  of  half-tilled  land  within,  which  only  requires  means 
of  conveyance  to  be  as  fertile  and  valuable  as  nine-tenths  of 
England.  You  ought  to  have  seen  that  deer-park,  Claude.  The 
panorama  from  that  old  ruined  '  bower '  of  cliff  and  woodland, 
down  and  sea,  is  really  unique  in  its  way." 

"  So  is  the  whole  place,  in  my  eyes.  I  have  seen  nothing  in 
England  to  be  compared  with  this  little  strip  of  semi-tropic  para 
dise  between  two  great  waste  worlds  of  sea  and  moor.  Lyn- 
mouth  might  be  matched  among  the  mountains  of  Wales  and 
Ireland.  The  first  three  miles  of  the  Rheidol,  from  the  Devil's 
Bridge  towards  Aberystwith,  or  the  gorge  of  the  Wye,  down  the 
opposite  watershed  of  the  same  mountains,  from  Castle  Dufferin 


256  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

down  to  Rhaiadyr,  are  equal  to  it  in  magnificence  of  form  and 
colour,  and  superior  in  size.  But  I  question  whether  any  thing 
ever  charmed  me  more  than  did  the  return  to  the  sounds  of 
nature  which  greeted  me  to-day,  as  I  turned  back  from  the 
dreary,  silent  moorland  turnpike,  into  this  magnificent  new  road, 
terraced  along  the  cliffs  and  woods  (those  who  first  thought  of 
cutting  it  must  have  had  souls  in  them  above  the  herd,)  and 
listened  to  a  glorious  concert  in  four  parts,  blending  and  support 
ing  each  other  in  the  most  exquisite  harmony,  from  the  shrill 
treble  of  a  thousand  birds,  and  the  soft  melancholy  alto  of  the 
moaning  woods,  downward  through  the  rich  tenor  hum  of  innu 
merable  insects,  that  hung  like  sparks  of  fire  beneath  the  glades 
of  oak,  to  the  base  of  the  unseen  surge  below, 

Whose  deep  and  dreadful  organ-pipe 

far  below  me  contrasted  strangely  with  the  rich  soft  inland  char 
acter  of  the  deep  woods,  luxuriant  ferns,  and  gaudy  flowers.  It 
is  that  very  contrast  which  makes  the  place  so  unique.  One  is 
accustomed  to  connect  with  the  notion  of  the  sea,  bare  cliffs, 
breezy  downs,  stunted  shrubs  struggling  for  existence  ;  and 
instead  of  them  behold  a  forest-wall  five  hundred  feet  high,  of 
almost  semi-tropic  luxuriance.  At  one  turn,  a  deep  glen,  with 
its  sea  of  green  woods,  filled  up  at  the  mouth  with  the  bright 
azure  sheet  of  ocean. — Then  some  long  stretch  of  the  road  would 
be  banked  up  on  one  side  with  crumbling  rocks,  festooned  with 
heath,  and  golden  hawkweed,  and  London  pride,  like  velvet 
cushions  covered  with  pink  lace,  and  beds  of  white  bramble  blos 
som  alive  with  butterflies  ;  while  above  my  head,  and  on  my 
right,  the  delicate  cool  canopy  of  oak  and  birch  leaves  shrouded 
me  so  close,  that  I  could  have  fancied  myself  miles  inland,  buried 
in  some  glen  unknown  to  any  wind  of  heaven,  but  that  every 
where,  between  green  sprays  and  gray  stems,  gleamed  that  same 
boundless  ocean  blue,  seeming  from  the  height  at  which  I  was,  to 
mount  into  the  very  sky.  It  looked  but  a  step  out  of  the  leafy 
covert  into  blank  infinity.  And  then,  as  the  road  wound  round 
some  point,  one's  eye  could  fall  down,  down,  through  the  abyss 
of  perpendicular  wood,  tree  below  tree  clinging  to  and  clothing 
the  cliff,  or  rather  no  cliff,  but  perpendicular  sheet  of  deep  wood 
sedge,  and  enormous  crown  ferns,  spreading  their  circular  fans. — 
But  there  is  no  describing  them,  or  painting  them  either. — And 
then  to  see  how  the  midday  sunbeams  leapt  past  one  down  the 
abyss,  throwing  out  here  a  gray  stem  by  one  point  of  burnished 
silver,  there  a  hazel  branch  by  a  single  leaf  of  glowing  golden 
green,  shooting  long  bright  arrows  down,  down,  through  the  dim, 
hot,  hazy  atmosphere  of  the  wood,  that  steamed  up  like  a  vapour- 


NORTH  DEVON.  257 

bath,  till  it  rested  at  last  upon  the  dappled  beach  of  pink  and 
gray  pebbles,  and  the  dappled  surge  which  wandered  up  and 
down  among  them,  and  broke  up  into  richer  intricacy,  with  its 
chequer-work  of  woodland  shadows,  the  restless  net  of  snowy 
foam." 

"  You  must  be  fresh  from  reading  Mr.  Euskin's  book,  Claude, 
to  be  able  to  give  birth  to  such  a  piece  of  complex  magniloquence 
as  that  last  period  of  yours." 

"  Why,  I  saw  all  that,  and  ten  thousand  things  more ;  and  yet 
do  you  complain  of  me  for  having  tried  to  put  one  out  of  all 
those  thousand  things  into  words  ?  And  what  do  you  mean  by 
sneering  at  Mr.  Ruskin  ?  Are  there  not  in  his  books  more  and 
finer  passages  of  descriptive  poetry — word-painting — call  them 
what  you  will,  than  in  any  other  prose  book  in  the  English  lan 
guage  ?  " 

"  Not  a  doubt  of  it,  my  dear  Claude ;  but  it  will  not  do  for 
every  one  to  try  Mr.  Ruskin's  tools.  Neither  you  nor  I  possess 
that  almost  Roman  severity,  that  stern  precision  of  conception 
and  expression,  which  enables  him  to  revel  in  the  most  gorgeous 
language,  without  ever  letting  it  pall  upon  the  reader's  taste  by 
affectation  or  over-lusciousness.  His  style  is  like  the  very  hills 
along  which  you  have  been  travelling,  whose  woods  enrich,  with 
out  enervating,  the  grand  simplicity  of  their  forms." 

"  The  comparison  is  just,"  said  Claude.  "  Mr.  Ruskin's  style, 
like  those  very  hills,  and  like,  too,  the  glorious  Norman  cathe 
drals  of  which  he  is  so  fond,  is  rather  magnified  than  concealed 
by  the  innumerable  multiplicity  of  its  ornamental  chasing  and 
colouring." 

"  And  is  not  that,"  I  asked,  "  the  very  highest  achievement  of 
artistic  style  ?  " 

"  Doubtless.  The  severe  and  grand  simplicity,  of  which  folks 
talk  so  much,  is  great  indeed,  but  only  the  greatest  as  long  as 
men  are  still  ignorant  of  Nature's  art  of  draping  her  forms  with 
colour,  chiaroscuro,  ornament,  not  at  the  expense  of  the  original 
design,  but  in  order  to  perfect  it  by  making  it  appeal  to  every 
faculty,  instead  of  those  of  form  and  size  alone." 

"  Still  you  will  allow  the  beauty  of  a  bare  rock,  a  down,  a 
church  spire,  a  sheet  or  line  of  horizontal  water, — their  necessity 
to  the  completion  of  a  landscape.  I  recollect  well  having  the 
value  of  a  stern  straight  line  in  Nature  brought  home  to  me, 
when,  during  a  long  ride  in  the  New  Forest,  after  my  eye  had 
become  quite  dulled  and  wearied  with  the  monotonous  softness  of 
rolling  lawns,  feathery  heath,  and  rounded  oak  and  beech  woods, 
1  suddenly  caught  sight  of  the  sharp  peaked  roof  of  Rhinefield 
Lodge,  and  its  row  of  tall  stiff  poplar-spires,  cutting  the  endless 


258  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

sea  of  curves.  The  relief  to  the  eye  was  delicious.  I  really 
believe  it  heightened  the  pleasure  with  which  I  reined  in  my 
mare  for  a  chat  with  old  Toomer  the  keeper,  and  the  glorious 
bloodhound  who  eyed  me  from  between  his  master's  legs." 

"  I  can  well  believe  it.  Simple  lines  in  a  landscape  are  of  the 
same  value  as  the  naked  parts  of  a  richly-clothed  figure.  They 
act  both  as  contrasts,  and  as  indications  of  the  original  substratum 
of  the  figure ;  but  to  say  that  severe  simplicity  is  the  highest 
ideal  is  mere  pedantry  and  Manicheism." 

"  Oh,  every  thing  is  Manicheism  with  you,  Claude  !  " 

"  And  no  wonder,  while  the  world  is  as  full  of  it  now  as  it 
was  in  the  thirteenth  century.  But  let  that  pass.  This  craving 
after  so-called  classic  art,  whether  it  be  Manicheism  or  not,  is 
certainly  a  fighting  against  God, — a  contempt  of  every  thing 
which  he  has  taught  us  artists  since  the  introduction  of  Chris 
tianity.  I  abominate  this  setting  up  of  Sculpture  above  Paint 
ing,  of  the  Greeks  above  the  Italians, — as  if  all  Eastern  civiliza 
tion,  all  Christian  truth,  had  taught  Art  nothing, — as  if  there 
was  not  more  real  beauty  in  a  French  cathedral  or  a  Venetian 
palazzo  than  in  a  dozen  Parthenons,  and  more  soul  in  one 
Rafaelle,  or  Titian  either,  than  in  all  the  Greek  statutes  of  the 
Tribune  or  Vatican." 

"  You  have  changed  your  creed,  I  see,  and,  like  all  converts, 
are  somewhat  fierce  and  fanatical.  You  used  to  believe  in 
Zeuxis  and  Parrhasius  in  old  times." 

"  Yes,  as  long  as  I  believed  in  Fuseli's  Lectures  ;  but  when  I 
saw  at  Pompeii  the  ancient  paintings  which  still  remain  to  us, 
my  faith  in  their  powers  received  its  first  shock  ;  and  when  I 
re-read  in  the  Lectures  of  Fuseli  and  his  school  all  their  extrav 
agant  praises  of  the  Greek  painters,  and  separated  their  few 
facts  fairly  out  from  among  the  floods  of  rant  on  which  they 
floated,  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  ancients  knew  as  little 
of  colour  or  chiaroscuro  as  they  did  of  perspective,  and  as  little 
of  spiritual  expression  as  they  did  of  landscape-painting.  What 
do  I  care  for  the  birds  pecking  at  Zeuxis's  grapes,  or  Zeuxis 
himself  trying  to  draw  back  Parrhasius's  curtain  ?  Imitative  art 
is  the  lowest  trickery.  There  are  twenty  men  in  England  now 
capable  of  the  same  sleight  of  hand ;  and  yet  these  are  recorded 
as  the  very  highest  triumphs  of  ancient  art  by  the  only  men  who 
have  handed  down  to  us  any  record  of  it." 

"  Well,  when  you  have  said  your  say,  and  eaten  your  lunch 
eon,  let  us  start  forth  again  together,  and  see  the  coast-line  to  the 
westward,  which  you  will  find  strangely  different,  though  quite 
as  charming  in  its  way  as  the  scenery  with  which  you  have  been 
already  so  enraptured." 


NORTH   DEVON.  259 

PAET   III. 

CLOVELLY. 

WHERE  were  we  at  the  end  of  our  last  number  ?  Preparing 
to  start  for  the  coast  to  the  westward  of  Clovelly.  Exactly ;  so 
here  recommences  my  story.  Claude  and  I  went  forth  along  the 
cliffs  of  a  park,  which  though  not  of  the  largest,  is  certainly  of 
the  loveliest,  in  England, — perhaps  unique,  from  that  abrupt  con 
tact  of  the  richest  inland  scenery  with  the  open  sea,  which  is  its 
distinctive  feature.  As  we  wandered  along  the  edge  of  the  cliff, 
beneath  us  on  our  left  lay  wooded  valleys,  lawns  spotted  with 
deer,  huge  timber  trees,  oak  arid  beech,  birch  and  alder,  growing 
as  full  and  round-headed  as  if  they  had  been  buried  in  some 
Shropshire  valley  fifty  miles  inland,  instead  of  having  the  At 
lantic  breezes  all  the  winter  long  sweeping  past  a  few  hundred 
feet  above  their  still  seclusion.  Glens  of  forest  wound  away 
into  the  high  inner  land,  with  silver  burns  sparkling  here  and 
there  under  their  deep  shadows  ;  while  from  the  lawns  beneath 
the  ground  sloped  rapidly  upwards  towards  us,  to  stop  short  in  a 
sheer  wall  of  cliff,  over  which  the  deer  were  leaning  to  crop  the 
shoots  of  ivy,  where  the  slipping1!  of  a  stone  would  have  sent 
them  400  feet  perpendicular  into  the  sea.  On  our  right,  from 
our  very  feet,  the  sea  spread  out  to  the  horizon ;  a  single  falcon 
was  wheeling  about  the  ledges  below ;  a  single  cormorant  was 
fishing  in  the  breakers,  diving  and  rising  again  like  some  tiny 
water-beetle ; 

The  murmuring  surge 

That  on  the  unnumbered  pebbles  idly  chafed 

Could  not  be  heard  so  high. 

The  only  sound  besides  the  rustle  of  the  fern  before  the 
startled  deer  was  the  soft  mysterious  treble  of  the  wind  as  it 
swept  over  the  face  of  the  cliff  beneath  us ;  but  the  cool  air  was 
confined  to  the  hill-tops  round  ;  beneath,  from  within  a  short 
distance  of  the  shore,  the  sea  was  shrouded  in  soft  summer  haze. 
The  far  Atlantic  lay  like  an  ocean  of  white  wool,  out  of  which 
the  Hartland  Cliffs  and  the  highest  point  of  Lundy  just  showed 
their  black  peaks.  Here  and  there  the  western  sun  caught  one 
white  bank  of  mist  after  another,  and  tinged  them  with  glowing 
gold  ;  while  nearer  us  long  silvery  zigzag  tide-lines,  which  I 
could  have  fancied  the  tracks  of  water-fairies,  wandered  away 
under  the  smoky  gray-brown  shadows  of  the  fog,  and  seemed  to 
vanish  hundreds  of  miles  off  into  an  infinite  void  of  space,  so 
completely  was  all  notion  of  size  or  distance  destroyed  by  the 
soft  gradations  of  the  mist.  Suddenly,  as  we  stood  watching,  a 


260  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

breeze  from  the  eastward  dired  into  the  basin  of  the  bay,  swept 
the  clouds  out,  packed  them  together,  rolled  them  over  each  other, 
and  hurled  them  into  the  air  miles  high  in  one  vast  Cordillera  of 
snow  mountains,  sailing  slowly  out  into  the  Atlantic  ;  and  instead 
of  the  chaos  of  mist,  the  whole  amphitheatre  of  cliffs,  with  their 
gay  green  woods,  and  spots  of  bright  red  marl  and  cold  black 
iron-stone,  and  the  gleaming  white  sands  of  Braunton,  and  the 
hills  of  Exmoor  bathed  in  sunshine — so  near  and  clear  we  almost 
fancied  we  could  see  the  pink  heather-hue  upon  them  ;  and  the 
bay  one  vast  rainbow,  ten  miles  of  flame-colour  and  purple, 
emerald  and  ultra-marine,  flecked  with  a  thousand  spots  of  flying 
snow.  You  may  believe  or  not,  readers  of  Eraser,  but  we  saw 
it  then,  not  for  the  first  time,  or  the  last,  please  God.  No  one 
knows  what  gigantic  effects  of  colours  even  our  temperate  zone 
can  show  till  they  have  been  in  Devonshire  and  Cornwall ;  and 
last,  but  not  least,  Ireland — the  Emerald  Isle,  in  truth.  No  stay- 
at-home  knows  the  colour  of  the  sea  till  he  has  seen  the  West 
of  England ;  and  no  one,  either  stay-at-home  or  traveller,  I  sus 
pect,  knows  what  the  colour  of  a  green  field  can  be  till  he  has 
seen  it  among  the  magic  smiles  and  tears  of  an  Irish  summer 
shower  in  county  Down. 

Down  we  wandered  from  our  height  through  u  trim  walks  and 
alleys  green,"  where  the  arbutus  and  gum-cistus  fringed  the  cliffs, 
and  through  the  deep  glades  of  the  park,  towards  the  delicious 
little  cove  which  bounds  it. — A  deep  crack  in  the  wooded  hills, 
an  old  mill  half-buried  in  rocks  and  flowers,  a  stream  tinkling  on 
from  one  rock-basin  to  another  towards  the  beach,  a  sandy  lawn 
gay  with  sea-side  flowers  over  which  wild  boys  and  bare-footed 
girls  were  trotting  their  poneys  with  panniers  full  of  sand,  and 
as  they  rattled  back  to  the  beach  for  a  fresh  load,  standing  up 
right  on  the  backs  of  their  steeds,  with  one  foot  in  each  pannier, 
at  full  trot  over  rocks  and  stones  where  a  landsman  would  find 
it  difficult  to  walk  on  his  own  legs. 

Enraptured  with  the  place  and  people,  Claude  pulled  out  his 
sketch-book  and  sat  down. 

"  What  extraordinary  rocks  ! "  said  he  at  length.  "  How  dif 
ferent  from  those  Cyclopean  blocks  and  walls  along  the  Exmoor 
cliffs  are  these  rich  brown  purple  and  olive  iron-stone  layers, 
with  their  sharp  serrated  lines  and  polished  slabs,  set  up  on  edge, 
snapped,  bent  double,  twisted  into  serpentine  curves,  every  sheet 
of  cliff  scored  with  sharp  parallel  lines  at  some  fresh  fantastic 
angle !  " 

"  Yes,  Claude,  there  must  have  been  strange  work  here  when 
all  these  strata  were  being  pressed  and  squeezed  together  like  a 
ream  of  wet  paper  between  the  rival  granite  pincers  of  Dart- 


NOKTH  DEVON.  261 

moor  and  Lundy.  They  must  have  suffered  enough  then  in  a 
few  hours  to  give  them  a  fair  right  to  lie  quiet  till  Doomsday,  as 
they  seem  likely  to  do.  But  I  can  assure  you  that  it  is  only  old 
Mother  Earth  who  has  fallen  asleep  hereabouts.  Air  and  sea 
are  just  as  live  as  ever.  Aye,  lovely  and  calm  enough  spreads 
beneath  us  now  the  broad  semicircle  of  the  bay ;  but  to  know 
what  it  can  be,  you  should  have  seen  it  as  I  have  done,  when,  in 
the  roaring  December  morning,  I  have  been  galloping  along  the 
cliffs,  wreck-hunting. — One  morning,  I  can  remember  now  well, 
how  we  watched  from  the  Hartland  Cliffs  a  great  barque,  that 
came  drifting  and  rolling  in  before  the  western  gale,  while  we 
followed  her  up  the  coast,  parsons  and  sportsmen,  farmers  and 
Preventive  men,  with  the  Manby's  mortar  lumbering  behind  us 
in  a  cart,  through  stone  gaps  and  track-ways,  from  headland  to 
headland. — The  maddening  excitement  of  expectation  as  she  ran 
wildly  towards  the  cliffs  at  our  feet,  and  then  sheered  off  again 
inexplicably — her  foremast  and  bowsprit,  I  recollect,  were  gone 
short  off  by  the  deck ;  a  few  wild  rags  of  sail  fluttered  from  her 
main  and  mizen.  But  with  all  straining  of  eyes  and  glasses,  we 
could  discern  no  sign  of  man  on  board.  Well  I  recollect  the 
mingled  disappointment  and  admiration  of  the  Preventive  men, 
as  a  fresh  set  of  salvors  appeared  in  view,  in  the  form  of  a  boat's 
crew  of  Clovelly  fishermen ;  how  we  watched  breathlessly  the 
little  black  speck  crawling  and  struggling  up  in  the  teeth  of  the 
gale,  under  the  shelter  of  the  land,  till,  when  the  ship  had  rounded 
a  point  into  smooth  water,  she  seized  on  her  like  some  tiny  spider 
on  a  huge  unwieldy  fly ;  and  then  how  one  still  smaller  black 
speck  showed  aloft  on  the  mainyard,  and  another — and  then  the 
desperate  efforts  to  get  the  topsail  set — and  how  we  saw  it  tear 
out  of  their  hands  again,  and  again,  and  again,  and  almost  fan 
cied  we  could  hear  the  thunder  of  its  flappings  above  the  roar 
of  the  gale,  and  the  mountains  of  surf  which  made  the  rocks 
ring  beneath  our  feet — and  how  we  stood  silent,  shuddering,  ex 
pecting  every  moment  to  see  whirled  into  the  sea  from  the  plung 
ing  yards  one  of  those  same  tiny  black  specks,  in  each  one  of 
which  was  a  living  human  soul,  with  wild  women  praying  for  it 
at  home !  And  then  how  they  tried  to  get  her  head  round  to 
the  wind,  and  disappeared  instantly  in  a  cloud  of  white  spray — 
and  let  her  head  fall  back  again — and  jammed  it  round  again,  and 
disappeared  again — and  at  last  let  her  drive  helplessly  up  the 
bay,  while  we  kept  pace  with  her  along  the  cliffs ;  and  how  at 
last,  when  she  had  been  mastered  and  fairly  taken  in  tow,  and 
was  within  two  miles  of  the  pier,  arid  all  hearts  were  merry  with 
the  hopes  of  a  prize  which  would  make  them  rich,  perhaps,  for 
years  to  come — one  third,  I  suppose,  of  the  whole  value  of  her 


262  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

cargo — how  she  broke  loose  from  them  at  the  last  moment,  and 
rushed  frantically  in  upon  those  huge  rocks  below  us,  leaping 
great  banks  of  slate  at  the  blow  of  each  breaker,  tearing  off 
masses  of  iron-stone  which  lie  there  to  this  day  to  tell  the  tale, 
till  she  drove  up  high  and  dry  against  the  cliff,  and  lay,  the  huge 
brute,  like  an  enormous  stranded  whale,  grinding  and  crashing 
itself  to  pieces  against  the  walls  of  its  adamantine  cage.  And 
well  I  recollect  the  sad  records  of  the  log-book  that  was  left  on 
board  the  deserted  ship ;  how  she  had  been  water-logged  for 
weeks  and  weeks,  buoyed  up  by  her  timber  cargo,  the  crew  cling 
ing  in  the  tops,  and  crawling  down,  when  they  dared,  for  putrid 
biscuit-dust  and  drops  of  water,  till  the  water  was  washed  over 
board  and  gone  ;  and  then  notice  after  notice,  "  On  this  day  such 
an  one  died,"  "  On  this  day  such  an  one  was  washed  away." 
The  log  kept  up  to  the  last,  even  when  there  was  only  that  to 
tell,  by  the  stern,  business-like  merchant  skipper,  whoever  he 
was ;  and  how  at  last,  when  there  was  neither  food  nor  water, 
the  strong  man's  heart  seemed  to  have  quailed,  or,  perhaps,  risen, 
into  a  prayer,  jotted  down  in  the  log,  "  The  Lord  have  mercy  on 
us  ! " — and  then  a  blank  of  several  pages,  and,  scribbled  with  a 
famine-shaken  hand,  "  Remember  thy  Creator  in  the  days  of  thy 
youth ; " — and  so  .the  log  and  the  ship  were  left  to  the  rats,  which 
covered  the  deck  when  our  men  boarded  her.  And  well  I  re 
member  the  last  act  of  that  tragedy ;  for  a  ship  has  really,  as 
sailors  feel,  a  personality,  almost  a  life  and  soul  of  her  own  ;  and 
as  long  as  her  timbers  hold  together,  all  is  not  over.  You  can 
hardly  call  her  a  corpse,  though  the  human  beings  who  inhabited 
her,  and  were  her  soul,  may  have  fled  into  the  far  eternities  ; 
and  so  I  felt  that  night,  as  I  came  down  along  the  very  woodland 
road  on  which  we  are  now  walking  with  the  northwest  wind 
hurling  dead  branches  and  showers  of  crisp  oak-leaves  about  my 
head ;  and  suddenly,  as  I  staggered  out  of  the  wood  here,  I  came 
upon  such  a  piece  of  chiaroscuro  as  would  have  baffled  Correggio, 
or  Rembrandt  himself.  Under  that  very  wall  was  a  long  tent  of 
sails  and  spars,  filled  with  Preventive  men,  fishermen,  Lloyd's 
underwriters,  lying  about  in  every  variety  of  strange  attitude  and 
costume ;  while  candles  stuck  in  bayonet-handles  in  the  wall, 
poured  out  a  wild  glare  over  shaggy  faces  and  glittering  weapons, 
and  piles  of  timber,  and  rusty  iron  cable  that  glowed  red-hot  in 
the  light,  and  then  streamed  up  the  glen  towards  me  through  the 
salt  misty  air  in  long  fans  of  light,  sending  fiery  bars  over  the 
brown  transparent  oak-  foliage  and  the  sad  beds  of  withered 
autumn  flowers,  and  glorifying  the  wild  flakes  of  foam,  as  they 
rushed  across  the  light-stream,  into  troops  of  tiny  silver  angels, 
that  vanished  into  the  night  and  hid  themselves  among  the  woods 


NORTH  DEVON.  263 

from  the  fierce  spirit  of  the  storm.  And  the'n,  just  where  the 
glare  of  the  lights  and  watch-fires  was  most  brilliant,  there  too 
the  black  shadows  of  the  cliff  had  placed  the  point  of  intensest 
darkness,  lightening  gradually  upwards  right  and  left,  between 
the  two  great  jaws  of  the  glen,  into  a  chaos  of  gray  mist,  where 
the  eye  could  discern  no  form  of  sea  or  cloud,  but  a  perpetual 
shifting  and  quivering  as  if  the  whole  atmosphere  was  writhing 
with  agony  in  the  clutches  of  the  wind. 

"  The  ship  was  breaking  up,"  and  they  sat  by  her  like  hope 
less  physicians  by  a  deathbed-side,  to  watch  the  last  struggle, — 
and  '  the  effects  of  the  deceased.'  I  recollect  our  literally  warp 
ing  ourselves  down  to  the  beach,  holding  on  by  rocks  and  posts. 
There  was  a  saddened,  awe-struck  silence,  even  upon  the  gentle 
man  from  Lloyd's  with  the  pen  behind  his  ear.  A  sudden  turn 
of  the  clouds  let  in  a  wild  gleam  of  moonshine  upon  the  white 
leaping  heads  of  the  giant  breakers,  and  on  that  tall  pyramid  of 
the  Black-church  Rock,  which  now  stands  in  such  calm  grandeur 
gazing  down  on  the  smiling  summer  bay,  with  the  white  sand  of 
Braunton  and  the  red  cliffs  of  Portledge  shining  through  its  two 
vast  arches  ;  and  there,  against  that  slab  of  rock  on  your  right, 
still  discoloured  with  her  paint,  lay  the  ship,  rising  slowly  on 
every  surge,  to  drop  again  with  a  piteous  crash  as  the  wave  fell 
back  from  the  cliff,  and  dragged  the  roaring  pebbles  back  with  it 
under  the  coming  wall  of  foam.  You  have  heard  of  ships  at 
the  last  moment  crying  aloud  like  living  things  in  agony  ?  I 
heard  it  then,  as  the  stumps  of  her  masts  rocked  and  reeled  in 
her,  and  every  plank  and  joint  strained  and  screamed  with  the 
dreadful  tension. 

A  horrible  image, — a  woman  shrieking  on  the  rack,  rose  up 
before  me  at  those  strange  semi-human  cries,  and  would  not  be 
put  away — and  I  tried  to  turn,  and  yet  my  eyes  were  rivetted 
on  the  black  mass,  which  seemed  vainly  to  implore  the  help  of 
man  against  the  stern  ministers  of  the  Omnipotent. 

Still  she  seemed  to  linger  in  the  death-struggle,  and  I  turned 
at  last  away  ;  when,  lo  !  a  wave,  huger  than  all  before  it,  rushed 
up  the  boulders  towards  us. — We  had  just  time  to  save  our 
selves. — A  dull,  thunderous  groan,  as  if  a  mountain  had  col 
lapsed,  rose  above  the  roar  of  the  tempest ;  and  we  all  turned 
with  an  instinctive  knowledge  of  what  had  happened,  just  in  time 
to  see  the  huge  mass  melt  away  into  the  boiling  white,  and  vanish 
for  evermore.  And  then  the  very  raving  of  the  wind  seemed 
hushed  with  awe  ;  the  very  breakers  plunged  more  silently 
towards  the  shore,  with  something  of  a  sullen  compunction  ;  and 
as  we  stood  and  strained  our  eyes  into  the  gloom,  one  black  plank 
after  another  crawled  up  out  of  the  darkness  upon  the  head  of 


264  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

the  coming  surge,  and  threw  itself  at  our  feet  like  the  corpse  of 
a  drowning  man,  too  spent  to  struggle  more. 

There  is  another  subject  for  a  picture  for  you  ;  but  your  gayer 
fancy  will  prefer  the  scene  just  as  you  are  sketching  it  now,  as 
still  and  bright  as  if  this  coast  had  never  seen  the  bay  darkened 
with  the  gray  columns  of  the  waterspouts,  stalking  across  the 
waves  before  the  northern  gale  ;  and  the  tiny  herring-boats  fleeing 
from  their  nets  right  for  the  breakers,  hoping  more  mercy  even 
from  those  iron  walls  of  rock  than  from  the  pitiless  howling  wil 
derness  of  spray  behind  them ;  and  that  merry  beach  beside  the 
town  covered  with  shrieking  women  and  old  men  casting  them 
selves  on  the  pebbles  in  fruitless  agonies  of  prayer,  as  corpse 
after  corpse  swept  up  at  the  feet  of  wife  and  child,  till  in  one 
case  alone  a  single  dawn  saw  upwards  of  sixty  widows  and 
orphans  weeping  over  those  who  had  gone  out  the  night  before 
in  the  fulness  of  strength  and  courage.  Hardly  an  old  playmate 
of  mine,  Claude,  but  is  drowned  and  gone  : — 

Their  graves  are  scattered  far  and  wide 
By  mount,  by  stream,  and  sea. 

One  poor  little  fellow's  face  starts  out  of  the  depths  of  memory 
as  fresh  as  ever,  my  especial  pet  and  bird-nesting  companion  as 
a  boy — a  little  delicate  precocious  large-brained  child,  that  might 
have  written  books  some  day,  if  he  had  been  a  gentleman's  son ; 
but  when  his  father's  ship  was  wrecked  they  found  him  left  alone 
of  all  the  crew,  just  as  he  had  been  lashed  into  the  rigging  by 
loving  and  dying  hands,  but  cold  and  stiff,  the  little  soul  beaten 
out  of  him  by  the  cruel  waves  before  it  had  time  to  show  what 
growth  there  might  have  been  in  it.  We  will  talk  no  more  of 
such  things.  It  is  thankless  to  be  sad  when  all  heaven  and  earth 
are  keeping  holiday  under  the  smile  of  God. 

And  now  let  us  return.  At  four  o'clock  to-morrow  morning, 
you  know,  we  are  to  start  for  Lundy. 


LUNDY. 

It  was  four  o'clock  on  an  August  morning.  Our  little  party 
had  made  the  sleeping  streets  ring  with  jests  and  greetings,  as  it 
collected  on  the  pier.  Some  dozen  young  men  and  women,  sons 
and  daughters  of  the  wealthier  coasting  captains  and  owners  of 
fishing-smacks,  chaperoned  by  our  old  landlord,  whose  delicate 
and  gentlemanlike  features  and  figure  were  strangely  at  variance 
with  the  history  of  his  life, — daring  smuggler,  daring  man-of-war 
sailor,  and  then  most  daring  and  successful  of  coast-guard  men. 
After  years  of  fighting  and  shipwreck  and  creeping  for  kegs  of 
brandy  ;  after  having  seen,  too, — sight  not  to  be  forgotten — the 


NORTH  DEVON.  265 

Walcheren  dykes  and  the  Walcheren  fever,  through  weary 
months  of  pestilence, — most  bootless  of  all  the  chimerical  jobs 
which  ever  disgraced  ministerial  ignorance,  he  had  come  back 
with  a  little  fortune  of  prize-money  to  be  a  village  oracle,  loving 
and  beloved,  as  gentle  and  courteous  as  if  he  had  never  "  stato 
al  inferno"  and  looked  Death  in  the  face.  Heaven  bless  thee, 
shrewd  loyal  heart,  a  gentleman  of  God's  making,  not  unrecog 
nized  either  by  many  of  men's  making.  The  other  chaperone 
was  a  lady  of  God's  making  too ;  one  who  might  have  been  a 
St.  Theresa,  had  she  been  born  there  and  then  ;  but  as  it  was, 
had  been  fated  to  become  only  the  Wesleyan  abbess  of  the  town, 
and,  like  Deborah,  "a  mother  in  Israel."  With  her  tall  slim 
queenly  figure,  massive  forehead,  wild  glittering  eyes,  features 
beaming  with  tenderness  and  enthusiasm,  and  yet  overcast  with 
a  peculiar  expression  of  self-consciousness  and  restraint,  well- 
known  to  those  who  have  studied  the  physiognomies  of  "  saints" 
she  seemed  to  want  only  the  dress  of  some  monastic  order  to 
make  her  the  ideal  of  a  mediaeval  abbess,  watching  with  a  half 
pitying,  half  complacent  smile,  the  gambols  of  a  group  of  in 
nocent  young  worldlings.  I  saw  Claude  gazing  at  her  full  of  ad 
miration  and  surprise,  which  latter  was  certainly  not  decreased 
when,  as  soon  as  all  had  settled  themselves  comfortably  on  board, 
and  the  cutter  was  slipping  quietly  away  under  the  magnificent 
deer-park  cliffs,  the  Lady  Abbess  pulling  out  her  Wesleyan 
hymn-book  gave  out  the  Morning  Hymn,  apparently  as  a  matter 
of  course. 

With  hardly  a  demur  one  sweet  voice  after  another  arose ; 
then  a  man  gained  courage,  and  chimed  in  with  a  full  harmo 
nious  bass ;  then  a  rich  sad  alto  made  itself  heard,  as  it  wandered 
in  and  out  between  the  voices  of  the  men  and  women.  And  at 
last  a  wild  mellow  tenor,  which  we  discovered  after  much  search 
ing  to  proceed  from  the  most  unlikely-looking  lips  of  an  old  dry, 
weather-bleared,  mummified  chrysalis  of  a  man,  who  stood  aft, 
steering  with  his  legs,  and  showing  no  sign  of  life  except  when 
he  slowly  and  solemnly  filled  his  nose  with  snuff. 

"  What  strange  people  have  you  brought  me  among  ? "  asked 
Claude.  "  I  have  been  wondering  ever  since  I  came  here  at 
the  splendid  faces  and  figures  of  men,  women,  and  children, 
which  popped  out  upon  me  from  every  door  in  that  human 
rabbit-burrow  above.  I  have  been  in  raptures  at  the  grace 
fulness,  the  courtesy,  the  intelligence  of  almost  every  one  I  meet ; 
and  now,  to  crown  all,  every  one  among  them  seems  to  be  a 
musician." 

"  Really  you  are  not  far  wrong,  and  you  will  find  them  as 
remarkable  morally  as  they  are  physically  and  intellectually. 

12 


266  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

The  simplicity  and  purity  of  the  women  here  put  one  more  in 
mind  of  the  valleys  of  the  Tyrol,  than  of  an  English  village." 

"  And  in  proportion  to  their  purity,  I  suppose,"  said  Claude, 
"  is  their  freedom  and  affectionateness  ?  " 

"  Exactly.  It  would  do  your  "  naturalist "  heart  good,  Claude, 
to  see  a  young  fellow  just  landed  from  a  foreign  voyage  rolling 
up  the  street  which  we  have  just  descended,  and  availing  himself 
of  the  immemorial  right  belonging  to  such  cases  of  kissing  and 
being  kissed  by  every  woman  whom  he  meets,  young  and  old. 
You  will  find  yourself  here  among  those  who  are  too  simple- 
minded,  and  too  full  of  self-respect,  to  be  either  servile  or 
uncourteous." 

"  I  have  found  out  already  that  Liberty,  Fraternity,  and  Equal 
ity,  in  such  company  as  this,  are  infinitely  pleasanter  as  well  as 
cheaper  than  the  aristocratic  seclusion  of  a  cutter  hired  for  our 
own  behoof." 

"  True  ;  and  now  you  will  not  go  home  and,  as  most  tourists 
do,  say  that  you  know  a  place,  without  knowing  the  people  who 
live  in  it — as  if  the  human  inhabitants  of  a  range  of  scenery 
were  not  among  its  integral  and  most  important  parts?" 

"•  What?  are  Copley  Fielding's  South  Down  landscapes  incom 
plete  without  a  half-starved  seven  shillings  a-week  labourer  in 
the  foreground?" 

"  Honestly,  are  they  not  a  text  without  a  sermon  ?  a  premise 
without  a  conclusion  ?  Is  it  not  partly  because  the  land  is  down, 
ami  not  well-tilled  arable,  that  the  labourer  is  what  he  is  ?  And 
yet,  perhaps,  the  very  absence  of  human  beings  in  his  vast  sheets 
of  landscape,  when  one  considers  that  they  are  scraps  of  great, 
overcrowded,  scientific  England  in  the  nineteenth  century,  is  in 
itself  the  bitterest  of  all  satires.  But,  hush  !  there  is  another 

h)  nm  commencing — not  to  be  the  last  by  many." 

*     .          *  *  *    '  *  * 

We  had  landed,  and  laughed  and  scrambled,  eaten  and  drank, 
seen  all  the  sights  of  Lundy,  and  heard  all  the  traditions.  Are 
they  not  written  in  Mr.  Bamfield's  Ilfracombe  guide  ?  What  is 
Mr.  Reynolds  about  that  he  does  not  write  a  fire-and-bririistone 
r.mumce  about  them?  Moresco  Castle  ;  or,  the  Pirate  Knight  of 
the  Atlantic  Wave.  Wliat  a  title !  Or  he  might  try,  The  Seal 
Fi  end ;  or,  the  Nemesis  of  the  Scuttled  West  Indiaman.  If  I 
had  paper  and  lubricite  enough — that  delightful  carelessness  of 
any  moral  or  purpose,  except  that  of  writing  fine  and  turning 
pennies,  which  possesses  our  modern  scribblers — I  could  tales 

uiiibld But  neither  pirate  legends,  nor  tales  of   cheated 

in-urance  offices,  nor  wrecks  and  murders,  will  make  my  readers 
unlerstand  Luiidy — what  it  is  "considered  in  its  idea,"  as 


NORTH  DEVON.  267 

the  new  slang  is.  It  may  be  defined  as  a  lighthouse-bearing 
island.  The  whole  three  miles  of  granite  table-land,  seals,  sea- 
birds,  and  human  beings,  are  mere  accidents  and  appendages — 
the  pedestal  and  the  ornaments  of  that  great  white  tower  in  the 
centre,  whose  sleepless  fiery  eye  blinks  all  night  long  over  the 
night-mists  of  the  Atlantic.  If,  as  a  wise  man  has  said,  the  days 
•will  come  when  our  degenerate  posterity  will  fall  down  and  wor 
ship  rusty  locomotives  and  fossil  electric-telegraphs,  the  relics  of 
their  ancestors'  science,  grown  to  them  mythic  and  impossible,  as 
the  Easter-islanders  bow  before  the  colossal  statues  left  by  a 
nobler  and  extinct  race,  then  surely  there  will  be  pilgrimages  to 
Lundy,  and  prayers  to  that  white  granite  tower,  with  its  unglazed 
lantern  and  rusting  machinery,  to  light  itself  up  again  and  help 
poor  human  beings  !  Really,  my  dear  brothers,  I  am  not  joking 
— you  seem  in  a  very  fair  way  nowadays  of  getting  to  that — 
Emersonian  sentimental  philosophy  for  the  "  enlightened "  few, 
and  fetish-worship  for  the  masses. — That  is  what  you  will  get  to 

— unless  you  repent,  and  "  get  back  your  souls." 

****** 

We  had  shot  along  the  cliffs  a  red-legged  chough  or  two,  and 
one  of  the  real  old  black  English  rat,  exterminated  on  the  main 
land  by  the  gray  Hanoverian  new-comer,  and  weary  with  sight 
seeing  and  scrambling,  we  sat  down  to  smoke  and  meditate  on  a 
slab  of  granite,  which  hung  three  hundred  feet  in  air  above  the 
western  main. 

"  This  is  even  more  strange  and  new  to  me,"  said  Claude,  at 
length,  "  than  any  thing  I  have  yet  seen  in  this  lovely  west.  I 
now  appreciate  liuskin's  advice  to  all  painters,  to  go  and  study 
the  coasts  of  Devon  and  Cornwall,  instead  of  lingering  about 
the  muddy  seas  and  tame  cliffs  of  the  Channel  and  the  German 
Ocean." 

"  How  clear  and  brilliant,"  said  I,  "  everything  shows  through 
this  Atlantic  atmosphere.  The  intensity  of  colouring  may  vie 
with  that  of  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean.  The  very  rain 
iness  of  the  climate,  by  condensing  the  moisture  into  an  ever- 
changing  phantasmagoria  of  clouds,  leaves  the  clear  air  and 
sunshine  when  we  do  get  a  glimpse  of  them,  all  the  more  pure 
and  transparent." 

"The  distinctive  feature  of  the  scene  is,  in  my  eyes,  the 
daring  juxtaposition  of  large  simple  masses  of  positive  colour. 
There  are  none  of  the  misty  enamelled  tones  of  Lynmouth,  or 
the  luscious  richness  of  Clovelly.  The  forms  are  so  simple  and 
severe,  that  they  would  be  absolutely  meagre,  were  it  not  for  the 
gorgeous  colouring  with  which  nature  has  so  lovingly  made  up 
for  the  absence  of  all  softness,  all  picturesque  outline.  One  does 


268  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

not  regret  or  even  feel  the  want  of  trees  here,  while  the  eye 
ranges  down  from  that  dappled  cloud  world  above,  over  that  vast 
sheet  of  purple  heather,  those  dells  bedded  with  dark  velvet 
green  fern,  of  a  depth  and  richness  of  hue  which  I  never  saw 
before — over  these  bright  gray  granite  rocks,  spangled  with  black 
glittering  mica  and  golden  lichens,  to  rest  at  last  on  that  sea 
below,  which  streams  past  the  island  in  a  swift  roaring  torrent 
of  tide." 

"  Sea,  Claude  ?  say,  ocean.  This  is  real  Atlantic  blue  here 
beneath  us.  No  more  Severn  mud,  no  more  glass-green  bay- 
water,  but  real  ocean  sapphire — black,  deep,  intense,  Homeric 
purple,  it  spreads  away — away,  there  before  us,  without  a  break 
or  islet,  to  the  shores  of  America.  You  are  sitting  on  one  of  the 
last  points  of  Europe,  and  therefore  all  things  round  you  are 
stern  and  strange  with  a  barbaric  pomp,  such  as  befits  the  boun 
dary  of  a  world." 

u  Ay,  the  very  form  of  the  cliffs  shows  them  to  be  the  break 
waters  of  a  continent.  No  more  fantastic  curves  and  bands  of 
slate,  such  as  harmonize  so  well  with  the  fairy-land  which  we 
left  this  morning :  the  cliffs,  with  their  horizontal  rows  of  cubical 
blocks,  seem  built  up  by  Cyclopean  hands." 

"  Yet  how  symbolic  is  the  difference  between  them  and  that 
equally  Cyclopic  masonry  of  the  Exmoor  coast.  There  every 
fracture  is  fresh,  sharp-edged  crystalline;  the  worn-out  useless 
hills  are  dropping  to  pieces  with  their  own  weight.  Here  each 
cube  is  delicately  rounded  off  at  the  edges,  every  crack  worn  out 
into  a  sinuous  furrow,  like  the  scars  of  an  everlasting  warfare 
with  the  winds  and  waves." 

"  Does  it  not  raise  strange  longings  in  you,"  said  Claude,  "  to 
gaze  out  yonder  over  the  infinite  calm,  and  then  to  remember 
that  beyond  it  lies  America  ! — the  New  World  !  the  future  world! 
The  great  Titan-baby,  who  will  be  teeming  with  its  own  Athens 
and  Londons,  with  new  Bacons  and  Shakspeares,  New  tons  and 
Goethes,  when  this  old  worn-out  island  will  be — what  ?  Oil ! 
when  I  look  out  here,  like  a  bird  from  its  cage,  a  captive  from 
his  dungeon,  and  remember  what  lies  behind  me,  to  what  I  must 
return  to-morrow — the  over-peopled  Babylon  of  misery  and  mis 
rule,  puffery  and  covetousness — and  there  before  me  great  coun 
tries  untilled,  uncivilized,  unchristianized,  crying  aloud  for  man  to 
come  and  be  man  indeed,  and  replenish  the  earth  and  subdue  it. 
'  Oh,  that  I  had  wings  as  a  dove,  then  would  I  flee  away  and  be 
at  rest ! '  Here,  lead  me  away  ;  my  body  is  growing  as  dizzy  as 
my  mind.  I  feel  coining  over  me  that  horrible  longing  of  which 
I  have  heard,  to  leap  out  into  empty  space.  How  the  blank  air 
whispers,  '  Be  free  ! '  How  the  broad  sea  smiles,  and  calls  with 


NORTH  DEVON.  269 

its  ten  thousand  waves,  '  Be  free  ! ' — As  I  live,  if  you  do  not  take 
me  away,  I  shall  throw  myself  over  the  cliff." 

I  did  take  him  away,  for  I  knew  the  sensation  and  its  danger 
well.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with  physical  giddiness.  I  am  cliff- 
bred,  and  never  was  giddy  for  an  instant  in  my  life,  and  yet  I 
have  often  felt  myself  impelled  to  leap  from  masts,  and  tree-tops, 
and  cliffs,  and  nothing  but  the  most  violent  effort  of  will  could 
break  the  fascination.  I  am  sure,  by  the  by,  that  many  a  puz 
zling  suicide  might  be  traced  to  this  same  emotion  acting  on  a 
weak  and  morbid  brain. 

We  returned  to  the  little  landing-cove.  The  red-sailed  cutter 
lay  sleeping  below  us — floating  "double,  ship  and  shadow." 
Shoals  of  innumerable  mackerel  broke  up,  making  acres  of 
water  foam  and  sparkle  round  their  silvery  sides,  with  a  soft 
roar  (call  it  "  a  bull "  if  you  like,  it  is  the  only  expression  for 
that  mysterious  sound,)  while  among  them  the  black  head  of  a 
huge  seal  was  slowly  and  silently  appearing  and  vanishing,  as 
he  got  his  dinner  in  a  quiet  business-like  way,  among  the  un 
happy  wanderers. 

We  put  off  in  th§  boat,  and  just  half  way  from  the  cutter 
Claude  gave  a  start,  and  the  women  a  scream,  as  the  enormous 
brute  quietly  raised  his  head  and  shoulders  out  of  the  water  ten 
yards  off,  with  a  fish  kicking  in  his  mouth,  and  the  water  running 
off  his  nose,  to  take  a  deliberate  stare  at  us,  after  the  fashion  of 
seals,  whose  ruling  passion  is  curiosity.  The  sound  of  a  musical 
instrument,  the  sight  of  a  man  bathing — any  thing,  in  short, 
which  their  small  wits  cannot  explain  at  first  sight,  is  enough  to 
make  them  forget  all  their  cunning,  and  thrust  their  heads  sui- 
cidally  into  any  danger ;  and  even  so  it  fared  with  the  "  black 
man,"  as  the  girls,  in  their  first  terror,  declared  him  to  be.  My 
gun  went  off1— of  itself  I  should  like  to  believe — but  the  whole 
cartridge  disappeared  into  his  sleek  round  visage,  knocking  the 
mackerel  from  between  his  teeth,  and  he  turned  over  a  seven- 
foot  lump  of  lifeless  blubber. 

"  Wretch  !  "  cried  Claude,  as  we  lugged  him  into  the  boat, 
where  he  lay  with  his  head  and  arms  hanging  helplessly  over 
the  bows,  like  a  sea-sick  alderman  on  board  a  Margate  steamer. 
"  What  excuse  can  you  give  for  such  a  piece  of  wanton 
cruelty  ?  " 

I  assure  you  his  skin  and  oil  are  very  valuable." 

"  Hypocrite !  were  you  thinking  of  his  skin  and  oil  when  you 
pulled  the  trigger  ?  or  merely  obeying  the  fleshy  lust  of  destruc- 
tiveness— the  puppet  of  two  bumps  on  the  back  of  your  head  ?  " 

"  My  dear  Claude,  man  is  the  microcosm,  and  as  the  highest 
animal,  the  ideal  type  of  the  mammalia,  he,  like  all  true  types, 


270  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

comprises  in  himself  the  attributes  of  all  lower  species.  There 
fore  he  must  have  a  tiger-vein  in  him,  my  dear  Claude,  as  well 
as  a  beaver-vein  and  a  spider-vein,  and  no  more  shame  to  him. 
You  are  a  butterfly,  I  am  a  beast  of  prey ;  both  may  have  their 
own  work  to  do  in  this  age  just  as  they  had  in  the  old  ones  ;  and 
if  you  do  not  like  that  explanation,  all  I  can  say  is,  I  can  sym 
pathize  with  you  and  with  myself  too.  Homo  sum — nil  humani 
a  me  alienum  puto.  Trim  the  boat,  uncle,  or  the  seal  will  swamp 
us,  and,  like  Samson,  slay  more  in  his  death  than  ever  he  slew 
in  his  life." 

We  slipped  on  homeward.  The  cliff-wall  of  Lundy  stood  out 
blacker  and  blacker  every  moment  against  the  gay  western  sky, 
greens,  grays,  and  purples,  dyeing  together  into  one  rich  deep 
monotone,  for  which  our  narrow  colour-vocabulary  has  no  word 
— and  threw  a  long  cold  shadow  toward  us  across  the  golden 
sea  ;  and  suddenly  above  its  dark  ridge  a  wild  wreath  of  low 
rack  caught  the  rays  of  the  setting  sun,  and  flamed  up  like  a 
volcano  towards  the  dun  and  purple  canopy  of  upper  clouds. 
Before  us  the  blue  sea  and  the  blue  land-line  were  fading  into 
mournful  gray,  on  which  one  huge  West*Indiaman  blazed  out, 
orange  and  scarlet,  her  crowded  canvas  all  a-flame  from  the 
truck  to  the  water's  edge. — A  few  moments  and  she,  too,  had 
vanished  into  the  gray  twilight,  and  a  chill  night-wind  crisped 
the  sea.  It  was  a  relief  to  hear  the  Evening  Hymn  rise  rich 
and  full  from  one  voice,  and  then  another,  and  another,  till  the 
men  chimed  in  one  by  one,  and  the  whole  cutter,  from  stem  to 
stern,  breathed  up  its  melody  into  the  silent  night. 

But  the  hymns  soon  flagged — there  was  more  mirth  on  board 
than  could  vent  itself  in  old  Charles  Wesley's  words  ;  and  one 
began  to  hum  a  song  tune,  and  then  another,  with  a  side  glance 
at  the  expression  of  the  Lady  Abbess's  face,  till  at  last,  when  a 
fair  wife  took  courage,  and  burst  out  with  full  pipe  into  "  The 
sea,  the  sea,"  the  ice  was  fairly  broken ;  and  among  jests  and 
laughter  one  merry  harmless  song  after  another  rang  out,  many 
of  them,  to  Claude's  surprise,  fashionable  London  ones,  which 
sounded  strangely  enough  out  there  on  the  wild  western  sea.  At 
last, — 

"  Claude,  friend,"  I  whispered,  "  you  must  sing  your  share 
too — and  mine  also,  for  that  matter." 

"What  shall  I  sing?" 

"Any  thing  you  will,  from  the  sublime  to  the  ridiculous.  They 
will  understand  and  appreciate  it  as  well  as  yourself.  Recollect, 
you  are  not  among  bullet-headed  South  Saxon  clods,  but  among 
wits  as  keen  and  imaginations  as  rich  as  those  of  any  Scotch 
shepherd  or  Manchester  operative." 


NORTH  DEVON.  271 

"  Well,  then,  I  will  feel  my  way  with  a  little  '  healthy  animal 
ism,'  as  Goethe  would  have  said." 
And  up  rose  his  exquisite  tenor : — 

There  sits  a  bird  on  every  tree, 

With  a  heigh-ho ! 
There  sits  a  bird  on  every  tree, 
Sings  to  its  love,  as  I  to  thee, 

With  a  heigh-ho,  and  a  heigh-ho ! 
Young  maids  must  marry. 

There  grows  a  flower  on  every  bough, 

With  a  heigh-ho ! 

There  grows  a  flower  on  every  bough; 
Its  gay  leaves  kiss — I'll  show  you  how — 

With  a  heigh-ho,  and  a  heigh-ho! 
Young  maids  must  marry. 

The  sun's  a  bridegroom,  earth  a  bride; 

With  a  heigh-ho ! 

The  sun's  a  bridegroom,  earth  a  bride; 
They  court  from  morn  to  eventide : 
The  earth  shall  pass  but  love  abide. 

With  a  heigh-ho,  and  a  heigh-ho ! 
Young  maids  must  marry. 

The  song  was  received  rapturously  by  the  women,  wives  and 
maids  both.  The  abbess  herself  only  objected,  as  in  duty  bound, 
by  a  faint  half  pitying  "  Tut — tut — tut ! "  and  then  quoted  medita 
tively  and  half  aside  a  certain  text  about  "  charity  abiding  for 
ever,"  which,  to  do  Claude  justice,  he  believed  quite  as  firmly  as 
the  good  Wesleyan  matron,  but  perhaps  in  a  somewhat  larger 
and  more  philosophic  sense. 

This  was  his  first  song,  but  it  was  not  allowed  to  be  his  last. 
German  ballads,  Italian  Opera  airs,  were  all  just  as  warmly,  and 
perhaps  far  more  sincerely,  appreciated,  as  they  would  have  been 
by  any  London  evening  party;  and  the  singing  went  on,  hour 
after  hour,  as  we  slipped  slowly  on  upon  the  tide,  till  it  grew 
late,  and  the  sweet  voices  died  away  one  by  one,  and  the  Lib 
erty,  Equality,  and  Fraternity,  which  had  reigned  so  pleasantly 
throughout  the  day  took  a  new  form,  as  the  women  huddled 
together  to  sleep  in  each  other's  arms,  and  the  men  and  ourselves 
clustered  forwards ;  and  from  every  mouth  fragrant  incense 
steamed  upwards  into  the  air.  "  Man  a  cooking  animal  ?  "  my 
dear  Doctor  Johnson — pooh  !  man  is  a  smoking  animal.  There 
is  his  ergon,  his  "  differential  energy,"  as  the  Aristotelians  say — 
his  true  distinction  from  the  ourang-outang.  Ponder  it  well. 

The  men  were  leaning  on  the  trawl  capstan,  while  our  old 
landlord,  with  half  a  dozen  pipes  within  a  foot  of  his  face, 
droned  out  some  long  sea-yarn  about  Ostend,  and  muds,  and 
snow-storms,  and  revenue  cruisers  going  down  stern  foremost, 


272  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

kegs  of  brandy  and  French  prisons,  which  we  shall  not  repeat; 
for  indeed  the  public  has  been  surfeited  with  sea  stories  of  late, 
from  Captain  Chamier's  dull  ones  up  to  the  genial  wisdom  of 
Peter  Simple,  and  the  gorgeous  word-painting  of  Tom  Cringle's 
Log.  And  now  the  subject  is  stale — the  old  war  and  the  won 
ders  thereof  have  died  away  into  the  past,  like  the  men  who 
fought  in  it ;  and  Trafalgar  and  the  Bellerophon  are  replaced  by 
Manchester  and  Mary  Barton.  We  have  solved  the  old  sea 
going  problems,  pretty  well — thanks  to  wise  English-hearted 
Captain  Marryat,  now  gone  to  his  rest,  just  when  his  work  was 
done ;  and  we  must  turn  round  and  face  a  few  land-going  prob 
lems  not  quite  so  easy  of  solution.  So  Claude  and  I  thought  as 
we  leant  over  the  sloop's  bows,  listening  neither  to  the  Ostend 
story  forewards,  nor  to  the  forty-stanza  ballad  aft,  which  the 
old  steersman  was  moaning  on,  careless  of  listeners,  to  keep 
himself  awake  at  the  helm.  Forty  stanzas  or  so  we  did  count 
from  curiosity.  The  first  line  of  each  of  which  ended  infallibly 
with 

Says  the  commodo — ore. 

And  the  third  with 

Says  the  female  smuggler. 

And  then  gave  up  in  despair  ;  and  watched  in  a  dreamy,  tired, 
half-sad  mood,  the  everlasting  sparkle  of  the  water  as  our  bows 
threw  it  gently  off  in  sheets  of  flame  and  "  tender  curving  lines 
of  creamy  "  fire,  that  ran  along  the  glassy  surface,  and  seemed 
to  awaken  the  sea  for  yards  round  into  glittering  life,  as  countless 
diamonds,  and  emeralds,  and  topazes,  leaped  and  ran  and  dived 
round  us,  while  we  slipped  slowly  by — and  then  a  speck  of  light 
would  show  far  off  in  the  blank  darkness,  and  another,  and 
another,  and  slide  slowly  up  to  us — shoals  of  medusae,  every  one 
of  them  a  heaving  globe  of  flame — and  some  unseen  guillemot 
would  give  a  startled  squeak,  or  a  shearwater  close  above  our 
heads  suddenly  stopped  the  yarn,  and  raised  a  titter  among  the 
men,  by  announcing  in  most  articulate  English  his  intention  of 
invading  the  domestic  happiness  of  his  neighbour — and  then  a 
fox's  bark  from  the  cliffs  came  wild  and  shrill,  although  so  faint 
and  distant ;  or  the  lazy  gaff  gave  a  sad  uneasy  creak. — And 
then  a  soft,  warm  air,  laden  with  heather  honey,  and  fragrant 
odours  of  sedge,  and  birch,  and  oak,  came  sighing  from  the  land. 
And  all  around  us  was  the  dense  blank  blackness  of  the  night, 
except  where  now  and  then  some  lonely  gleam  through  the 
southern  clouds  showed  the  huge  cliff  tops  on  our  right. — It  was 
almost  unearthly,  dream-like,  a  strange  phantasmagoria,  like 
some  scenes  from  The  Ancient  Mariner — all  the  world  shut  out, 


NORTH  DEVON.  273 

silent,  invisible,  and  we  floating  along  there  alone,  like  a  fairy 
ship  creeking  through  Chaos  and  the  unknown  Limbo.  Was  it 
an  evil  thought  that  rose  within  us  as  we  said  to  Claude, — 

"  Is  not  this  too  like  life  ?  Our  only  light  the  sparkles  that 
rise  up  round  us  at  every  step,  and  die  behind  us;  and  all  around, 
and  all  before,  the  great,  black,  unfathomable  eternities  ?  A  few 
souls  brought  together  as  it  were  by  chance,  for  a  short  friendship 
and  mutual  dependence  in  this  little  ship  of  earth,  so  soon  to 
land  her  passengers  and  break  up  the  company  for  ever  ?  " 

He  laughed. 

"  There  is  a  devil's  meaning  to  everything  in  nature,  and  a 
God's  meaning,  too.  Your  friends,  the  zoologists,  have  surely 
taught  you  better  than  that.  As  I  read  Nature's  parable  to 
night,  I  find  nothing  in  it  but  hope.  What  if  there  be  darkness, 
the  sun  will  rise  to-morrow.  What  if  there  seem  a  chaos,  the 
great  organic  world  is  still  living,  and  growing,  and  feeding, 
unseen  by  us,  all  the  black  night  through  ;  and  every  phosphoric 
atom  there  below  is  a  -sign  that  even  in  the  darkest  night  there 
is  still  the  power  of  light,  ready  to  flash  out,  wherever  and  how 
ever  it  is  stirred.  Does  the  age  seem  to  you  dark  ?  Do  you, 
too,  feel  as  I  do  at  times,  the  awful  sadness  of  that  text, — "  The 
time  shall  come  when  ye  shall  desire  to  see  one  of  the  days  of 
the  Lord  and  shall  not  see  it  ?  "  Then  remember  that 

The  night  is  never  so  long 

But  at  last  it  ringeth  for  matin  song. 

And  even  as  it  is  around  us  here,  so  it  is  in  the  world  of  men ; 
the  night  is  peopled  not  merely  with  phantoms,  and  wizards,  and 
spirits  of  evil,  but  under  its  shadow  all  opinions,  systems,  social 
energies,  are  taking  rest,  and  growing,  and  feeding,  unknown  to 
themselves,  that  they  may  awake  into  a  new  life,  and  intermarry, 
and  beget  children  nobler  than  themselves,  when  "  the  day-spring 
from  on  high  comes  down."  Even  now,  see !  the  dawn  is  gilding 
the  highest  souls,  as  it  is  those  Exmoor  peaks  afar  ;  and  we  aro 
in  the  night,  only  because  we  crawl  below.  What  if  we  be  un 
conscious  of  all  the  living  energies  which  are  fermenting  round 
us  now  ?  Have  you  not  shown  me  in  this  last  week  every  moor 
land  pool,  every  drop  of  the  summer  sea,  alive  with  beautiful 
organizations,  multiplying  as  fast  as  the  thoughts  of  man  ?  Is 
not  every  leaf  breathing  still?  every  sap  rein  drinking  still, 
though  we  may  not  see  them  ?  "  Even  so  is  the  kingdom  of 
God,  like  seed  sown  on  the  ground,  and  men  rise,  and  lie  down 
and  sleep,  and  it  groweth  up  they  know  not  how."  Must  I  quote 
your  own  verse  against  you  ?  Must  I  appeal  from  Philip  drunk 

12* 


274  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

to  Philip  sober  ?     Listen  to  what  you  said  to  me  only  last  week, 
and  be  ashamed  of  yourself: — 

The  day  of  the  Lord  is  at  hand,  at  hand ! 

Its  storms  roll  up  the  sky ; 
A  nation  sleeps  starving  on  heaps  of  gold ; 

All  dreamers  toss  and  sigh ; 
The  night  is  darkest  before  the  dawn — 
When  the  pain  is  sorest,  the  child  is  born — 
And  the  day  of  the  Lord  at  hand. 

Gather  you,  gather  you,  angels  of  God, 

Freedom,  and  mercy,  and  truth. 
Come !  for  the  earth  is  grown  coward  and  old, 

Come  down  and  renew  us  her  youth  1 
Wisdom,  self-sacrifice,  daring  and  love, 
Haste  to  the  battle-field,  stoop  from  above, 
To  the  day  of  the  Lord  at  hand. 

Gather  you,  gather  you,  hounds  of  hell, 

Famine,  and  plague,  and  war. 
Idleness,  bigotry,  cant,  and  misrule, 

Gather,  and  fall  in  the  snare ! 
Hirelings  and  mammonites,  pedants  and  knaves, 
Crawl  to  the  battle-field,  sneak  to  your  graves, 
In  the  day  of  the  Lord  at  hand. 

Who  would  sit  down  and  sigh  for  a  lost  age  of  gold, 

While  the  Lord  of  all  ages  is  here  ? 
True  hearts  will  leap  up  at  the  trumpet  of  God, 

And  those  who  can  suffer,  can  dare. 
Each  old  age  of  gold  was  an  iron  age  too, 
And  the  meekest  of  saints  may  find  stern  work  to  do, 
In  the  day  of  the  Lord  at  hand.' 

He  ceased,  and  we  both  fell  into  a  reverie.  The  yarn  and 
the  ballad  were  finished,  and  not  a  sound  broke  the  silence, 
except  the  screaming  of  the  sea  fowl,  which  led  my  thoughts 
wandering  back  to  nights  long  past,  w.hen  we  dragged  the  seine 
up  to  our  chins  in  water  through  the  short  midsummer  night, 
and  scrambled  and  rolled  over  on  the  beach  in  boyish  glee,  after 
trie  skate  and  mullet,  with  those  now  gone ;  and  as  I  thought 
and  thought,  old  voices  seemed  to  call  to  me,  old  faces  looked  at 
me,  of  playmates,  and  those  nearer  than  playmates,  now  sleeping 
in  the  deep,  deep  sea,  amid  far  coral  islands ;  and  old  figures 
seemed  to  glide  out  of  the  mysterious  dark  along  the  still  sea 
floor,  as  if  the  ocean  were  indeed  giving  up  her  dead.  I  shook 
myself,  turned  away,  and  tried  to  persuade  myself  that  I  was 
dreaming.  Perhaps  I  had  been  doing  so.  At  least,  I  remember 
very  little  more,  till  I  was  roused  by  the  rattling  of  the  chain- 
cable  through  the  hawse-hole,  opposite  the  pier-head. 

And  now,  gentle  readers,  farewell ;  and  farewell,  Clovelly, 
and  all  the  loving  hearts  it  holds  ;  and  farewell,  too,  the  soft  still 
summer  weather.  Claude  and  I  are  taking  our  last  walk  together 


NORTH   DEVON.  275 

along  the  deer-park  cliffs.  Lundy  is  shrouded  in  the  great  gray 
fan  of  dappled  haze  which  streams  up  from  the  westward,  dim 
ming  the  sickly  sun.  "  There  is  not  a  breath  the  blue  wave  to 
curl."  Yet,  lo  !  round  "  Chapman's  Head  "  creeps  a  huge  bank 
of  polished  swell,  and  bursts  in  thunder  on  the  cliffs. — Another 
follows,  and  another. — The  Atlantic  gales  are  sending  in  their 
avant-couriers  of  ground-swell — six  hours  more,  and  the  storm 
which  has  been  sweeping  over  "  the  still-vexed  Bermoothes,"  and 
bending  the  tall  palms  on  West  Indian  isles,  will  be  roaring 
through  the  oak-woods  of  Devon.  The  old  black  buck  is  calling 
his  does  with  ominous  croakings,  and  leading  the  way  slowly  into 
the  deepest  coverts  of  the  glens.  The  stormy  petrels,  driven  in 
from  the  Atlantic,  are  skimming  like  great  black  swallows  over 
the  bay  beneath  us.  Long  strings  of  sea-fowl  are  flagging  on 
steadily  at  railroad  pace,  towards  the  sands  and  salt-marshes  of 
Braunton.  The  herring-boats  are  hastily  hauling  their  nets — 
you  may  see  the  fish  sparkling  like  flakes  of  silver  as  they  come 
up  over  the  gunwale  ;  all  craft,  large  and  small,  are  making  for 
the  shelter  of  the  pier.  Claude  starts  this  afternoon  to  sit  for 
six  months  in  Babylonic  smoke,  "working  up  his  sketches  into 
certain  unspeakable  pictures,  with  which  the  world  will  be  aston 
ished,  or  otherwise,  at  the  next  Royal  Academy  Exhibition  ; 
while  I,  for  whom  another  fortnight  of  pure  western  air  remains, 
am  off  to  well-known  streams,  to  be  in  time  for  the  autumn 
floods,  and  the  shoals  of  fresh-run  salmon-trout. 


276  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 


PHAETHON ; 


LOOSE  THOUGHTS  FOR  LOOSE  THINKERS. 

"  WORDS  are  the  fool's  counters,  but  the  wise  man's  money." 

"TRENCH. 

"  Equidem,  collabente  in  vitium  atque  errorem  loquendi  usu,  occasum  ejus 
urbis  remque  humilem  atque  obscuram  subsequi  crediderim:  verba  enim 
partim  inscita  et  putida,  partim  mendosa  et  perperam  prolata,  quid  nisi  ignavos 
et  oscitantes  et  ad  servile  quidvis  j^m  olim  paratos  incolaruin  animos  haud 
levi  indicio  declarant?  " — MILTON. 

TEMPLETON  and  I  were  lounging  by  the  clear  limestone 
stream  which  crossed  his  park,  and  wound  away  round  wooded 
hills  toward  the  distant  Severn.  A  lovelier  fishing  morning 
sportsmen  never  saw.  A  soft  grey  under-roof  of  cloud  slid  on 
before  a  soft  west  wind,  and  here  and  there  a  stray  gleam  of 
sunlight  shot  into  the  vale  across  the  purple  mountain-tops,  and 
awoke  into  busy  life  the  denizens  of  the  water,  already  quick 
ened  by  the  mysterious  electric  influences  of  the  last  night's 
thunder-shower.  The  long-winged  cinnamon-flies  spun  and  flut 
tered  over  the  pools  ;  the  sand- bees  hummed  merrily  round  their 
burrows  in  the  marly  bank ;  and  delicate  iridescent  ephemera 
rose  by  hundreds  from  the  depths,  and  dropping  their  shells, 
floated  away,  each  a  tiny  Venus  Anadyomene,  down  the  glassy 
ripples  of  the  reaches.  Every  moment  a  heavy  splash  beneath 
some  overhanging  tuft  of  milfoil  or  water-hemlock  proclaimed 
the  death-doom  of  a  hapless  beetle  who  had  dropped  into  the 
stream  beneath  ;  yet  still  we  fished  and  fished,  and  caught  noth 
ing,  and  seemed  utterly  careless  about  catching  any  thing ;  till 
the  old  keeper  who  followed  us,  sighing  and  shrugging  his 
shoulders,  broke  forth  into  open  remonstrance  : — 

"  Excuse  my  liberty,  gentlemen,  but  whatever  is  the  matter 
with  you  and  master,  Sir  ?  I  never  did  see  you  miss  so  many 
honest  rises  before." 

"  It  is  too  true,"  said  Templeton  to  me  with  a  laugh.    "  I  must 


PHAETHON.  277 

confess,  I  have  been  dreaming  instead  of  fishing  the  whole  morn 
ing.  But  what  has  happened  to  you,  who  are  not  as  apt  as  I 
am  to  do  nothing  by  trying  to  do  two  things  at  once  ?  " 

"  My  hand  may  well  be  somewhat  unsteady ;  for  to  tell  the 
truth,  I  sat  up  all  last  night  writing." 

"A  hopeful  preparation  for  a  day's  fishing  in  limestone  water ! 
But  what  can  have  set  you  on  writing  all  night,  after  so  busy 
and  talkative  an  evening  as  the  last,  ending  too,  as  it  did,  some 
where  about  half-past  twelve  ?  " 

"  Perhaps  the  said  talkative  evening  itself ;  and  I  suspect,  if 
you  will  confess  the  truth,  you  will  say  that  your  morning's  medi 
tations  are  running  very  much  in  the  same  channel." 

"  Lewis,"  said  he,  after  a  pause,  "  go  up  to  the  hall,  and  bring 
some  luncheon  for  us  down  to  the  lower  waterfall." 

"And  a  wheelbarrow  to  carry  home  the  fish,  Sir  ?  " 

"  If  you  wish  to  warm  yourself,  certainly.  And  now,  my 
good  fellow,"  said  he,  as  the  old  keeper  toddled  away  up  the 
park,  "  I  will  open  my  heart — a  process  for  which  I  have  but 
few  opportunities  here — to  an  old  college  friend.  I  am  disturbed 
and  saddened  by  last  night's  talk,  and  by  last  night's  guest." 

"  By  the  American  professor  ?  How,  in  the  name  of  English 
exclusiveness,  did  such  a  rampantly  heterodox  spiritual  guerilla 
invade  the  respectabilities  and  conservatisms  of  Herefordshire  ?  " 

"  He  was  returning  from  a  tour  through  Wales,  and  had  in 
troductions  to  me  from  some  Manchester  friends  of  mine,  to 
avail  himself  of  which,  I  found,  he  had  gone  some  thirty  miles 
out  of  his  way." 

"  Complimentary  to  you,  at  least." 

"  To  Lady  Jane,  I  suspect,  rather  than,  to  me  ;  for  he  told  me 
broadly  enough  that  all  the  flattering  attentions  which  he  had 
received  in  Manchester — where,  you  know,  all  such  prophets 
are  welcomed  with  open  arms,  their  only  credentials  being  that, 
whatsoever  they  believe,  they  shall  not  believe  the  Bible — had 
not  given  him  the  pleasure  which  he  had  received  from  that  one 
introduction  to  what  he  called  '  the  inner  hearth-life  of  the  Eng 
lish  landed  aristocracy.'  But  what  did  you  think  of  him  ?  " 

"  Do  you  really  wish  to  know  ?  " 

"I  do." 

"  Then,  honestly,  I  never  heard  so  much  magniloquent  un 
wisdom  talked  in  the  same  space  of  time.  It  was  the  sense  of 
shame  for  my  race  which  kept  me  silent  "all  the  evening.  I 
could  not  trust  myself  to  argue  with  a  gray-haired  Saxon  man, 
whose  fifty  years  of  life  seemed  to  have  left  him  a  child,  in  all 
but  the  childlike  heart  which  alone  can  enter  into  the  kingdom 
of  heaven." 


278  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

"  You  are  severe,"  said  Templeton,  smilingly  though,  as  if  his 
estimate  were  not  very  different  from  mine. 

"  Can  one  help  being  severe  when  one  hears  irreverence 
poured  forth  from  reverend  lips  ?  I  do  not  mean  merely  irrev 
erence  for  the  Catholic  Creeds  ;  that  to  my  mind — God  forgive 
me  if  I  misjudge  him — seemed  to  me  only  one  fruit  of  a  deep 
root  of  irreverence  for  all  things  as  they  are,  even  for  all  things 
as  they  seem.  Did  you  not  remark  the  audacious  contempt  for 
all  ages  but  (  our  glorious  nineteenth  century,'  and  the  still  deeper 
contempt  for  all  in  the  said  glorious  time,  who  dared  to  believe 
that  there  was  any  ascertained  truth  independent  of  the  private 
fancy  and  opinion  of — for  I  am  afraid  it  came  to  that — him, 
Professor  Windrush,  and  his  circle  of  elect  souls  ?  '  You  may 
believe  nothing,  if  you  like,  and  welcome ;  but  if  you  do  take  to 
that  unnecessary  act,  you  are  a  fool  if  you  believe  anything  but 
what  I  believe ; — though  I  do  not  choose  to  state  what  that 
is.'  ....  Is  not  that,  now,  a  pretty  fair  formulization  of  his 
doctrine  ?  " 

"  But,  my  dear  raver,"  said  Templeton,  laughing,  "  the  man 
believed  at  least  in  physical  science.  I  am  sure  we  heard  enough 
about  its  triumphs." 

"  It  may  be  so.  But  to  me  his  very  '  spiritualism '  seemed 
more  materialistic  than  his  physics.  His  notion  seemed  to  be, 
though  Heaven  forbid  that  I  should  say  that  he  ever  put  it  form 
ally  before  himself " 

"  Or  anything  else,"  said  Templeton,  sotto  voce. 

"  — that  it  is  the  spiritual  world  which  is  governed  by  physi 
cal  laws,  and  the  physical  by  spiritual  ones ;  that  while  men  and 
women  are  merely  the  puppets  of  cerebrations  and  mentations, 
and  attractions  and  repulsions,  it  is  the  trees,  and  stones,  and 
gases,  who  have  the  wills  and  the  energies,  and  the  faiths  and 
the  virtues  and  the  personalities." 

"  You  are  caricaturing." 

"  How  so  ?  How  can  I  judge  otherwise,  when  I  hear  a  man 
talking,  as  he  did,  of  God  in  terms  which,  every  one  of  them, 
involved  what  we  call  the  essential  properties  of  matter — space, 
time,  passibility,  motion ;  setting  forth  phrenology  and  mesmer 
ism  as  the  great  organs  of  education,  even  of  the  regeneration 
of  mankind ;  apologizing  for  the  earlier  ravings  of  the  Pough- 
keepsie  seer,  and  considering  his  later  eclectico-pantheist  far 
ragos  as  great  utterances  :  while,  whenever  he  talked  of  nature 
he  showed  the  most  credulous  craving  after  everything  which 
we  the  countrymen  of  Bacon,  have  been  taught  to  consider  un 
scientific — Homoeopathy,  Electro-biology,  Loves  of  the  Plants 
a  la  Darwin,  Vestiges  of  Creation,  Vegetarianisms,  Teetotalisms 


PHAETHON.  279 

— never  mind  what,  provided  it  was  unaccredited  or  condemned 
by  regularly  educated  men  of  science  ?  " 

"  But  you  don't  mean  to  assert  that  there  is  nothing  in  any 
of  these  theories  ?  " 

"Of  course  not.  I  can  no  more  prove  a  universal  negative 
about  them,  than  I  can  about  the  existence  of  life  on  the  moon. 
But  I  do  say  that  this  contempt  for  that  which  has  been  already 
discovered — this  carelessness  about  induction  from  the  normal 
phenomena,*coupled  with  this  hankering  after  theories  built  upon 
exceptional  ones — this  craving  for  '  signs  and  wonders,'  which  is 
the  sure  accompaniment  of  a  dying  faith  in  God,  and  in  nature 
as  God's  work — are  symptoms  which  make  me  tremble  for  the 
fate  of  physical  as  well  as  of  spiritual  science,  both  in  America 
and  in  the  Americanists  here  at  home.  As  the  Professor  talked 
on,  I  could  not  help  thinking  of  the  Neo-Platonists  of  Alexandria, 
and  their  exactly  similar  course, — downward  from  a  spiritualism 
of  notions  and  emotions,  which  in  every  term  confessed  its  own 
materialism,  to  the  fearful  discovery  that  consciousness  does  not 
reveal  God,  not  even  matter,  but  only  its  own  existence ;  and 
then  onward,  in  desperate  search  after  something  external  where 
in  to  trust,  toward  theurgic  fetish  worship,  and  the  secret  virtues 
of  gems  and  flowers  arid  stars  ;  and,  last  of  all,  to  the  lowest 
depth  of  bowing  statues  and  winking  pictures.  The  sixth  cen 
tury  saw  that  career,  Templeton :  the  nineteenth  may  see  it  re- 
enacted,  with  only  these  differences,  that  the  nature-worship 
which  seems  coming  will  be  all  the  more  crushing  and  slavish, 
.because  we  know  so  much  better  how  vast  and  glorious  nature 
is;  and  that  the  superstitions  will  be  more  clumsy  and  foolish 
in  proportion  as  our  Saxon  brain  is  less  acute  and  discursive, 
and  our  education  less  severely  scientific,  than  those  of  the  old 
Greeks." 

"  Silence,  raver  !  "  cried  Templeton,  throwing  himself  on  the 
grass  in  fits  of  laughter.  "So  the  Professor's  grandchildren  will 
have  either  turned  Papists,  or  be  bowing  down  before  rusty  loco 
motives  and  broken  electric  telegraphs  ?  But,  my>  good  friend, 
you  surely  do  not  take  Professor  Windrush  for  a  fair  sample  of 
the  great  American  people  ?  " 

"  God  forbid  that  so  unpractical  a  talker  should  be  a  sample 
of  the  most  practical  people  upon  earth.  The  Americans  have 
their  engineers,  their  geographers,  their  astronomers,  their  scien 
tific  chemists  ;  few  indeed,  but  such  as  bid  fair  to  rival  those  of 
any  nation  upon  earth.  But  these,  like  other  true  workers,  hold 
their  tongues  and  do  their  business." 

"And  they  "nave  a  few  indigenous  authors  too:  you  must  have 
read  the  Biylow  Papers,  and  the  Fable  for  Critics, — and  last  but 
not  least,  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  ? " 


280  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

"  Yes ;  and  I  have  had  far  less  fear  for  Americans  since  I  read 
that  book ;  for  it  showed  me  that  there  was  right  healthy  power, 
artistic  as  well  as  intellectual,  among  them  even  now, — ready, 
when  their  present  borrowed  peacock's  feathers  have  fallen  off, 
to  come  forth  and  prove  that  the  Yankee  Eagle  is  a  right  gallant 
bird,  if  he  will  but  trust  to  his  own  natural  plumage." 

"And  they  have  a  few  statesmen  also." 

"  But  they  are  curt,  plain-spoken,  practical, — in  every  thing 
antipodal  to  the  knot  of  hapless  men,  who,  unable  from  some  de 
fect  or  morbidity  to  help  on  the  real  movement  of  their  nation, 
are  fain  to  get  their  bread  with  tongue  and  pen,  by  retailing  to 
'  silly  women,'  '  ever  learning  and  never  coming  to  the  knowledge 
of  the  truth,'  second-hand  German  eclecticisms,  now  exploded 
even  in  the  country  where  they  arose,  and  the  very  froth  and 
scum  of  the  Medea's  caldron,  in  which  the  disjecta  membra  of  old 
Calvinism  are  pitiably  seething." 

"Ah  !  It  has  been  always  the  plan,  you  know,  in  England,  as 
well  as  in  America,  courteously  to  avoid  taking  up  a  German  the 
ory  till  the  Germans  had  quite  done  with  it,  and  thrown  it  away 
for  something  new.  But  what  are  we  to  say  of  those  who  are 
trying  to  introduce  into  England  these  very  Americanized  Ger 
manisms,  as  the  only  teaching  which  can  suit  the  needs  of  the  old 
world?" 

"  We  will,  if  we  are  in  a  vulgar  humour,  apply  to  them  a  cer 
tain  old  proverb  about  teaching  one's  grandmother  a  certain  sim 
ple  operation  on  the  egg  of  the  domestic  fowl ;  but  we  will  no 
less  take  shame  to  ourselves,  as  sons  of  Alma  Mater,  that  such- 
nonsense  can  get  even  a  day's  hearing,  either  among  the  daugh 
ters  of  Manchester  manufacturers,  or  among  London  working 
men.  Had  we  taught  them  what  we  were  taught  in  the  schools, 
Templeton —  " 

"  Alas,  my  friend,  we  must  ourselves  have  learnt  it  first.  I 
have  no  right  to  throw  stones  at  the  poor  Professor ;  for  I  could 
not  answer  him." 

"  Do  not  suppose  that  I  can  either.  All  I  say  is, — mankind 
has  not  lived  in  vain.  Least  of  all  has  it  lived  in  vain  during 
the  last  eighteen  hundred  years.  It  has  gained  something  of 
eternal  truth  in  every  age,  and  that  which  it  has  gained  is  as 
fresh  and  young  now  as  ever ;  and  I  will  not  throw  away  the 
bird  in  the  hand,  for  any  number  of  birds  in  the  bush." 

"  Especially  when  you  suspect  most  of  them  to  be  only  wooden 
pheasants,  set  up  to  delude  poachers.  Well,  you  are  far  more  of 
a  Philister  and  a  Conservative  than  I  thought  you." 

"  The  New  is  coming,  I  doubt  not ;  but  it  must  grow  organi 
cally  out  of  the  Old, — not  root  the  old  up,  and  stick  itself  full 


PHAETHON.  281 

grown  into  the  place  thereof,  like  a  French  tree  of  liberty, — sure 
of  much  the  same  fate.  Other  foundation  can  no  man  lay  than 
that  which  is  laid  already,  in  spiritual  things  or  in  physical ;  as 
the  Professor  and  his  school  will  surely  find." 

"  You  recollect  to  whom  the  Bible  applies  that  text  ?  " 

«Ido." 

"  And  yet  you  say  you  cannot  answer  the  Professor  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  care  to  do  so.  There  are  certain  root-truths  which 
I  know,  because  they  have  been  discovered  and  settled  for  ages  ; 
and  instead  of  accepting  the  challenge  of  every  I-know-not-whom. 
to  reexamine  them,  and  begin  the  world's  work  all  over  again,  I 
will  test  his  theories  by  them ;  and  if  they  fail  to  coincide,  I  will 
hear  no  more  speech  about  the  details  of  the  branches  and  flow 
ers,  for  I  shall  know  the  root  is  rotten." 

"  But  he,  too,  acknowledged  certain  of  those  root-truths,"  said 
Templeton,  who  seemed  to  have  a  lingering  sympathy  with  my 
victim  ;  "  he  insisted  most  strongly,  and  spoke,  you  will  not  deny, 
eloquently  and  nobly  on  the  Unity  of  the  Deity." 

"  On  the  non-Trinity  of  it,  rather ;  for  I  will  not  degrade  the 
word  '  Him,'  by  applying  it  here.  But,  tell  me  honestly — 
0'  est  le  timbre  qui  fait  la  musique — did  his  'Unity  of  the  Deity' 
sound  in  your  English  Bible-bred  heart  at  all  like  that  ancient, 
human,  personal  '  Hear,  O  Israel  !  the  Lord  thy  God  is  one 
Lord?'" 

"  Much  more  like  '  The  Something  our  Nothing  is  one  Some 
thing.'" 

"  May  we  not  suspect,  then,  that  his  notion  of  the  l  Unity  of 
the  Deity '  does  not  quite  coincide  with  the  foundation  already 
laid,  whosesoever  else  may  ?  " 

"  You  are  assuming  rather  hastily." 

"Perhaps  I  may  prove  also,  some  day  or  other.  Do  you 
think,  moreover,  that  the  theory  which  he  so  boldly  started,  when 
his  nerves  and  his  manners  were  relieved  from  the  unwonted 
pressure  by  Lady  Jane  and  the  ladies  going  up  stairs,  was  part 
of  the  same  old  foundation  ?  " 

"Which,  then?" 

"  That,  if  a  man  does  but  believe  a  thing,  he  has  a  right  to 
speak  it  and  act  on  it,  right  or  wrong.  Have  you  forgotten  his 
vindication  of  your  friend,  the  radical  voter,  and  his  '  spirit  of 
truth?'" 

"  What,  the  worthy  who,  when  I  canvassed  him  as  the  liberal 
candidate  for  .  .  .  .  ,  and  promised  to  support  complete  free 
dom  of  religious  opinion,  tested  me  by  breaking  out  into  such 
blasphemous  ribaldry  as  made  me  run  out  of  the  house,  and  then 
went  and  voted  against  me  as  a  .bigot  ? " 


282  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

"I  mean  him,  of  course.  The  Professor  really  seemed  to 
admire  the  man,  as  a  more  brave  and  conscientious  hero  than 
himself.  I  am  not  sqeamish,  as  you  know  :  but  I  am  afraid  that 
I  was  quite  rude  to  him  when  he  went  as  far  as  that." 

"  What, — when  you  told  him  that  you  thought  that,  after  all, 
the  old  theory  of  the  Divine  Right  of  Kings  was  as  plausible  as 
the  new  theory  of  the  Divine  Right  of  Blasphemy  ? — My  dear 
fellow,  do  not  fret  yourself  on  that  point.  He  seemed  to  take  it 
rather  as  a  compliment  to  his  own  audacity,  and  whispered  to 
me  that  '  The  Divine  Right  of  Blasphemy '  was  an  expression  of 
which  Theodore  Parker  himself  need  not  have  been  ashamed." 

"  He  was  pleased  to  be  complimentary.  But,  tell  me,  what 
was  it  in  his  oratory  which  has  so  vexed  the  soul  of  the  country 
squire  ?  " 

"  That  very  argument  of  his,  among  many  things.  I  saw,  or 
rather  felt,  that  he  was  wrong ;  and  yet,  as  I  have  said  already, 
I  could  not  answer  him  ;  and,  had  he  not  been  my  guest,  should 
have  got  thoroughly  cross  with  him  as  a  pis  alter" 

"  I  saw  it.  But,  my  friend,  used  we  not  to  read  Plato  together, 
and  enjoy  him  together,  in  old  Cambridge  days  ?  Do  you  not 
think  that  Socrates  might  at  all  events  have  driven  the  Professor 
into  a  corner  ?  " 

"  He  might :  but  I  cannot.  Is  that,  then,  what  you  were  writ 
ing  about  all  last  night  ?  " 

"  It  was.  I  could  not  help,  when  I  went  out  on  the  terrace  to 
smoke  my  last  cigar,  fancying  to  myself  how  Socrates  might  have 
seemed  to  set  you,  and  the  Professor,  and  that  warm-hearted, 
right-headed,  wrong-tongued  High-Church  Curate,  all  together 
by  the  ears,  and  made  confusion  worse  confounded  for  the  time 
being,  and  yet  have  left  for  each  of  you  some  hint  whereby  you 
might  see  the  darling  truth,  for  which  you  were  barking,  all  the 
more  clearly  in  the  light  of  the  one  which  you  were  howling 
down." 

"  And  so  you  sat  up,  and — I  thought  the  corridor  smelt  some 
what  of  smoke." 

"  Forgive,  and  I  will  confess.  I  wrote  a  dialogue  ; — and  here 
it  is,  if  you  choose  to  hear  it.  If  there  are  a  few  passages,  or 
even  many,  which  Plato  would  not  have  written,  you  will  con 
sider  my  age  and  inexperience,  and  forgive." 

"  My  dear  fellow,  you  forgot  that  I,  like  you,  have  been  ten 
years  away  from  dear  old  Alma-Mater,  Plato,  the  boats,  and 
Potton  Wood.  My  authorities  now  are  Morton  on  Soils,  and 
Miles  on  the  Horse's  Foot.  Read  on,  fearless  of  my  criticisms. 
Here  is  the  waterfall ;  we  will  settle  ourselves  on  Jane's  favourite 
seat.  You  shall  discourse,  and  I,  till  Lewis  brings  the  luncheon, 


PHAETHON.  283 

will  smoke  my  cigar ;  and  if  I  seem  to  be  looking  at  the  moun 
tain,  don't  fancy  that  I  am  only  counting  how  many  young  grouse 
those  heath-burning  worthies  will  have  left  me  by  the  twelfth." 
So  we  sat  down,  and  I  began  : — 


PHAETHON. 

ALCIBIADES  and  I  walked  into  the  Pnyx  early  the  other 
morning,  before  the  people  assembled.  There  we  saw  Socrates 
standing,  having  his  face  turned  toward  the  rising  sun.  Ap 
proaching  him,  we  perceived  that  he  was  praying ;  and  that  so 
ardently,  that  we  touched  him  on  the  shoulder  before  he  became 
aware  of  our  presence. 

"You  seem  like  a  man  filled  with  the  God,  Socrates,"  said 
Alcibiades. 

"  Would  that  were  true,"  answered  he,  "  both  of  me  and  of  all 
who  will  counsel  here  this  day.  In  fact,  I  was  praying  for  that 
very  thing ;  namely,  that  they  might  have  light  to  see  the  truth, 
in  whatsoever  matter  might  be  discussed  here." 

"  And  for  me  also  ?  "  said  Alcibiades  ; — "  but  I  have  prepared 
my  speech  already." 

"And  for  you  also,  if  you  desire  it, — even  though  some  of  your 
periods  should  be  spoiled  thereby.  But  why  are  you  both  here 
so  early,  before  any  business  is  stirring  ?  " 

"  We  were  discussing,"  said  I,  "  that  very  thing  for  which  we 
found  you  praying,  namely,  truth,  and  what  it  might  be." 

"  Perhaps  you  went  a  worse  way  toward  discovering  it  than  I 
did.  But  let  us  hear.  Whence  did  the  discussion  arise  ?  " 

"From  something,"  said  Alcibiades,  "which  Protagoras  said 
in  his  lecture  yesterday, — How  truth  was  what  each  man  trow- 
eth,  or  belie veth  to  be  true.  '  So  that,',  he  said,  '  one  thing  is  true 
to  me,  if  I  believe  it  true,  and  another  opposite  thing  to  you,  if 
you  believe  that  opposite.  For,'  continued  he,  '  there  is  an  objec 
tive  and  a  subjective  truth  ;  the  former,  doubtless,  one  and  abso 
lute,  and  contained  in  the  nature  of  each  thing ;  but  the  other 
manifold  and  relative,  varying  with  the  faculties  of  each  perceiver 
thereof.'  But  as  each  man's  faculties,  he  said,  were  different  from 
his  neighbour's,  and  all  more  or  less  imperfect,  it  was  impossible 
that  the  absolute  objective  truth  of  any  thing  could  be  seen  by 
any  mortal,  but  only  some  partial  approximation,  and,  as  it  were, 
sketch  of  it,  according  as  the  object  was  represented  with  more 
or  less  refraction  on  the  mirror  of  his  subjectivity.  And  there- 


284  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

fore,  as  the  true  inquirer  deals  only  with  the  possible,  and  lets 
the  impossible  go,  it  was  the  business  of  the  wise  man,  shunning 
the  search  after  absolute  truth  as  an  impious  attempt  of  the 
Titans  to  scale  Olympus,  to  busy  himself  humbly  and  practically 
with  subjective  truth,  and  with  those  methods — rhetoric,  for  in 
stance — by  which  he  can  make  the  subjective  opinions  of  others 
either  similar  to  his  own,  or,  leaving  them  as  they  are, — for  it 
may  be  very  often  unnecessary  to  change  them, — useful  to  his 
own  ends." 

Then  Socrates,  laughing, — 

"  My  fine  fellow,  you  will  have  made  more  than  one  oration 
in  the  Pnyx  to-day.  And  indeed,  I  myself  felt  quite  exalted, 
and  rapt  aloft,  like  Bellerophon  on  Pegasus,  upon  the  eloquence 
of  Protagoras  and  you.  But  yet  forgive  me  this  one  thing ;  for 
my  mother  bare  me,  as  you  know,  a  man-midwife,  after  her  own 
trade,  and  not  a  sage." 

ALCIBIADES.  "  What  then  ?  " 

SOCRATES.  "  This,  my  astonishing  friend — for  really  I  am 
altogether  astonished  and  struck  dumb,  as  I  always  am  whenso 
ever  I  hear  a  brilliant  talker  like  you  discourse  concerning  objec 
tivities  and  subjectivities,  and  such  mysterious  words  :  at  such 
moments  I  am  like  an  old  war-horse,  who,  though  he  will  rush 
on  levelled  lances,  shudders  and  sweats  with  terror  at  a  boy  rat 
tling  pebbles  in  a  bladder ;  and  I  feel  altogether  dizzy,  and  dread 
lest  I  should  suffer  some  such  transformation  as  Scylla,  when  I 
hear  awful  words,  like  incantations,  pronounced  over  me,  of  which 
I,  being  no  sage,  understand  nothing. — But  tell  me  now,  Alcibiu- 
des  ;  did  the  opinion  of  Protagoras  altogether  please  you  ?  " 

A.  "  Why  not  ?  Is  it  not  certain  that  two  equally  honest  men 
may  differ  in  their  opinions  on  the  same  matter  ?  " 

S.  «  Undeniable." 

A.  "  But  if  each  is  equally  sincere  in  speaking  what  he  be 
lieves,  is  not  each  equally  moved  by  the  spirit  of  truth  ?  " 

S.  "  You  seem  to  have  been  lately  initiated,  and  that  not  at 
Eleusis  merely,  nor  in  the  Cabiria,  but  rather  in  some  Persian 
or  Babylonian  mysteries,  when  you  discourse  thus  of  spirits.  But 
you,  Phaeton,"  (turning  to  me,)  "  how  did  you  like  the  periods 
of  Protagoras  ?  " 

"  Do  not  ask  me,  Socrates,"  said  I,  "  for  indeed  we  have  fought 
a  weary  battle  together  ever  since  sundown  last  night ;  and  all 
that  I  had  to  say  I  learnt  from  you." 

S.  "  From  me,  my  good  fellow  ?  " 

PHAETHON.  "  Yes,  indeed.  I  seemed  to  have  heard  from 
you  that  truth  is  simply  l  facts  as  they  are.'  But  when  I  urged 
this  on  Alcibiades,  his  arguments  seemed  superior  to  mine." 


PHAETHON.  285 

A.  "  But  I  have  been  telling  him,  drunk  and  sober,  that  it  is 
my  opinion  also  as  to  what  truth  is.  Only  I,  with  Protagoras, 
distinguish  between  objective  fact  and  subjective  opinion." 

S.  "  Doing  rightly,  too,  fair  youth.  But  how  comes  it  then 
that  you  and  Phaeton  cannot  agree  ?  " 

"  That,"  said  I,  "  you  know  better  than  either  of  us." 

"  You  seem  both  of  you,"  said  Socrates,  "  to  be,  as  usual,  in 
the  family  way.  Shall  I  exercise  my  profession  on  you." 

"  No,  by  Zeus ! "  answered  Alcibiades,  laughing  ;  "  I  fear  thee, 
thou  juggler,  lest  I  suffer  once  again  the  same  fate  with  the 
woman  in  the  myth,  and  after  I  have  conceived  a  fair  man-child, 
and,  as  I  fancy,  brought  it  forth,  thou  hold  up  to  the  people  some 
dead  puppy,  or  log,  or  what  not,  and  cry,  '  Look  what  Alcibiades 
has  produced  ! ' ' 

S.  "  But,  beautiful  youth,  before  I  can  do  that,  you  will  have 
spoken  your  oration  on  the  bema,  and  all  the  people  will  be  ready 
and  able  to  say,  '  Absurd !  nothing  but  what  is  fair  can  come 
from  so  fair  a  body.'  Come,  let  us  consider  the  question  to 
gether." 

I  assented  willingly;  and  Alcibiades,  mincing  and  pouting, 
after  his  fashion,  still  was  loth  to  refuse. 

S.  "  Let  us  see,  then.  Alcibiades  distinguishes,  he  says,  be 
tween  objective  fact  and  subjective  opinion  ?  " 

A.  "  Of  course  I  do." 

S.  "  But  not,  I  presume,  between  objective  truth  and  subjective 
truth,  whereof  Protagoras  spoke  ?  " 

A.  "  What  trap  are  you  laying  now  ?  I  distinguish  between 
them  also,  of  course." 

S.  "Tell  me,  then,  dear  youth,  of  your  indulgence,  what  they 
are  ;  for  I  am  shamefully  ignorant  on  the  matter." 

A.  "  Why,  do  they  not  call  a  thing  objectively  true,  when  it  is 
true  absolutely  in  itself;  but  subjectively  true,  when  it  is  true  in 
the  belief  of  a  particular  person  ?  " 

S.  " — Though  not  necessarily  true  objectively,  that  is,  ab 
solutely  and  in  itself  ?  " 

A.  "  No." 

S.  "  But  possibly  true  so  ?  " 

A.  "  Of  course." 

S.  "  Now,  tell  me — a  thing  is  objectively  true,  is  it  not,  when 
it  is  a  fact  as  it  is  ?  " 

A.  "  Yes." 

S.  "  And  when  it  is  a  fact  as  it  is  not,  it  is  objectively  false  ; 
for  such  a  fact  would  not  be  true  absolutely,  and  in  itself,  would 

A.  "  Of  course  not." 


286  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

S.  "  Such  a  fact  would  be,  therefore,  no  fact,  and  nothing." 

A.  "Why  so?" 

S.  "  Because,  if  a  thing  exists,  it  can  only  exist  as  it  is,  not  as 
it  is  not ;  at  least,  my  opinion  inclines  that  way." 

"  Certainly  not,"  said  I ;  "  why  do  you  haggle  so,  Alcibiades  ?  " 

S.  "  Fair  and  softly,  Phaethon  !  How  do  you  know  that  he  is 
not  fighting  for  wife  and  child,  and  the  altars  of  his  gods  ?  But 
if  he  will  agree  with  you  and  me,  he  will  confess  that  a  thing, 
which  is  objectively  false  does  not  exist  at  all,  and  is  nothing." 

A.  "  I  suppose  it  is  necessary  to  do  so.  But  I  know  whither 
you  are  struggling." 

S.  "  To  this  dear  youth,  that,  therefore,  if  a  thing  subjectively 
true  be  also  objectively  false,  it  does  not  exist,  and  is  nothing." 

"  It  is  so,"  said  I. 

S.  "  Let  us,  then,  let  nothing  go  its  own  way,  while  we  go  on 
ours  with  that  which  is  only  objectively  true,  lest  coming  to  a 
river  over  which  it  is  subjectively  true  to  us  that  there  is  a  bridge, 
arid  trying  to  walk  over  that  work  of  our  own  mind,  but  no  one's 
hands,  the  bridge  prove  to  be  objectively  false,  and  we,  walking 
over  the  bank  into  the  water,  be  set  free  from  that  which  is  sub 
jective  on  the  further  bank  of  Styx." 

Then  I,  laughing,  "  This  hardly  coincides,  Alcibiades,  with 
Protagoras's  opinion,  that  subjective  truth  was  alone  useful." 

"  But  rather  proves,"  said  Socrates,  "  that  undiluted  draughts 
of  it  are  of  a  hurtful  and  poisonous  nature,'  and  require  to  be 
tempered  with  somewhat  of  objective  truth,  before  it  is  safe  to 
use  them  ; — at  least  in  the  case  of  bridges." 

"  Did  I  not  tell  you,"  interrupted  Alcibiades,  "  how  the  old  de 
ceiver  would  try  to  put  me  to  bed  of  some  dead  puppy  or  log  ? 
Or  do  you  not  see  how,  in  order,  after  his  custom,  to  raise  a  laugh 
about  the  whole  question  by  vulgar  examples  he  is  blinking  what 
he  knows  as  well  as  I  ?  " 

S.  "  What  then,  fair  youth  ?  " 

A.  "  That  Protagoras  was  not  speaking  about  bridges,  or  any 
other  merely  physical  things,  on  which  no  difference  of  opinion 
need  occur,  because  every  one  can  satisfy  himself  by  simply 
using  his  senses  ;  but  concerning  moral  and  intellectual  matters, 
which  are  not  cognizable  by  the  senses,  and  therefore  permit, 
without  blame,  a  greater  diversity  of  opinion.  Error  on  such 
points,  he  told  us— ron  the  subject  of  religion,  for  example — was 
both  pardonable  and  harmless  ;  for  no  blame  could  be  imputed 
to  the  man  who  acted  faithfully  up  to  his  own  belief,  whatsoever 
that  might  be." 

S.  "  Bravely  spoken  of  him,  and  worthily  of  a  free  state. 
But  tell  me,  Alcibiades,  with  what  matters  does  religion  deal." 


PHAETHON.  287 

A.  "  With  the  Gods." 

S.  "  Then  it  is  not  hurtful  to  speak  fake  things  of  the  Gods  ?  " 

A.  "  Not  unless  you  know  them  to  be  false." 

S.  "  But  answer  me  this,  Alcibiades.  If  you  made  a  mistake 
concerning  numbers,  as  that  twice  two  made  five,  might  it  not  be 
hurtful  to  you  ?  " 

A.  "  Certainly ;  for  I  might  pay  away  five  obols  instead  of 
four." 

S.  "  And  so  be  punished,  not  by  any  anger  of  two  and  two 
against  you,  but  by  those  very  necessary  laws  of  number,  which 
you  had  mistaken  ?  " 

A.  «  Yes." 

S.  "  Or  if  you  made  a  mistake  concerning  music,  as  that  two 
consecutive  notes  could  produce  harmony,  that  opinion  also,  if 
you  acted  upon  it,  would  be  hurtful  to  you  ?  " 

A.  "  Certainly ;  for  I  should  make  a  discord,  and  pain  my  own 
ears,  and  my  hearers'." 

S.  "  And,  in  this  case  also,  be  punished,  not  by  any  anger  of 
the  lyre  against  you,  but  by  those  very  necessary  laws  of  music 
which  you  had  mistaken  ?  " 

A.  "  Yes." 

S.  "  Or  if  you  mistook  concerning  a  brave  man,  believing  him 
to  be  a  coward,  might  not  this  also  be  hurtful  to  you  ?  If,  for 
instance,  you  attacked  him  carelessly,  expecting  him  to  run  away, 
and  he  defended  himself  valiantly,  and  conquered  you  ;  or  if  you 
neglected  to  call  for  his  help  in  need,  expecting  him  falsely,  as 
in  the  forjper  case,  to  run  away  ;  would  not  such  a  mistake  be 
hurtful  t$  you,  and  punish  you,  not  by  any  anger  of  the  man 
against  you,  but  by  your  mistake  itself?  " 

A.  "  It  is  evident." 

S.  "  We  may  assume,  then,  that  such  mistakes  at  least  are 
hurtful,  and  that  they  are  liable  to  be  punished  by  the  very  laws 
of  that  concerning  which  we  mistake  ?  " 

A.  "  We  may  so  assume." 

S.  "  Suppose,  then,  we  were  to  say,  '  What  argument  is  this  of 
yours,  Protagoras  ? — that  concerning  lesser  things,  both  intellect 
ual  and  moral,  such  as  concerning  number,  music,  or  the  charac 
ter  of  a  man,  mistakes  are  hurtful,  and  liable  to  bring  punishment, 
in  proportion  to  our  need  of  using  those  things  :  but  concerning 
the  Gods,  the  very  authors  and  lawgivers  of  number,  music, 
human  character,  and  all  other  things  whatsoever,  mistakes  are  of 
no  consequence,  nor  in  any  way  hurtful  to  man,  who  stands  in 
need  of  their  help,  not  only  in  stress  of  battle,  once  or  twice  in 
his  life,  as  he  might  of  the  brave  man,  but  always  and  in  all 
things  both  outward  and  inward  ?  Does  it  not  seem  strange  to 


288  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

you,  for  it  does  to  me,  that  to  make  mistakes  concerning  such 
beings  should  not  bring  an  altogether  infinite  and  daily  punish 
ment,  not  by  any  resentment  of  theirs,  but,  as  in  the  case  of 
music  or  numbers,  by  the  very  fact  of  our  having  mistaken  the 
laws  of  their  being,  on  which  the  whole  Universe  depends  ?  ' — 
What  do  you  suppose  Protagoras  would  be  able  to  answer  if  he 
faced  the  question  boldly  ?  " 

A.  "  I  cannot  tell." 

S.  "  Nor  I  either.  Yet  one  thing  more  it  may  be  worth  our 
while  to  examine.  If  one  should  mistake  concerning  God,  will 
his  error  be  one  of  excess  or  defect  ?  " 

A.  "  How  can  I  tell  ?  " 

S.  "  Let  us  see.  Is  not  Zeus  more  perfect  than  all  other 
beings  ?  " 

A.  "  Certainly,  if  it  be  true  that,  as  they  say,  the  perfection  of 
each  kind  of  being  is  derived  from  him ;  He  must  therefore  be 
himself  more  perfect  than  any  one  of  those  perfections." 

S.  "  Well  argued.  Therefore,  if  .  he  conceived  of  himself, 
his  conception  of  himself  would  be  more  perfect  than  that  of 
any  man  concerning  him  ?  " 

A.  "  Assuredly ;  if  he  have  that  faculty,  he  must  needs  have 
it  in  perfection." 

—  S.  "  Suppose,  then,  that  he  conceived  of  one  of  his  own 
properties,  such  as  his  justice ;  how  large  would  that  perfect  con 
ception  of  his  be  ?  " 

A.  "  But  how  can  I  tell,  Socrates  ?  " 

S.  "  My  good  friend,  would  it  not  be  exactly  commensurate 
with  that  justice  of  his  ?  " 

A.  "  How  then  ?  " 

S.  "  Wherein  consists  the  perfection  of  any  conception,  save  in 
this,  that  it  be  the  exact  copy  of  that  whereof  it  is  conceived, 
and  neither  greater  nor  less  ?  " 

A.  "  I  see  now." 

S.  "  Without  the  Pythia's  help,  I  should  say.  But,  tell  me — 
We  agree  that  Zeus's  conception  of  his  own  justice  will  be  exactly 
commensurate  with  his  justice  ?  " 

A.  «  We  do." 

S.  "  But  man's  conception  thereof,  it  has  been  agreed,  would 
be  certainly  less  perfect  than  Zeus's  ?  " 

A.     "  It  would." 

S.  "  Man,  then,  it  seems,  would  always  conceive  God  to  be  less 
just  than  God  conceives  himself  to  be?" 

A.  "  He  would." 

S.  "And  therefore  to  be  less  just,  according  to  the  argument, 
than  he  really  is  ?  " 


PIJAETHON.  289 

A.  "  True." 

S.  "  And  therefore  his  error  concerning  Zeus,  would  be  in  this 
case  an  error  of  defect  ?  " 

A.  "  It  would." 

S.  "  And  so  on  of  each  of  his  other  properties  ?  " 

A.  "  The  same  argument  would  likewise,  as  far  as  I  can  see, 
apply  to  them." 

S.  "  So  that,  on  the  whole,  man,  by  the  unassisted  power  of 
his  own  faculty,  will  always  conceive  Zeus  to  be-  less  just,  wise, 
good,  and  beautiful  than  he  is  ?  " 

A.  "  It  seems  probable." 

S.  "  But  does  not  that  seem  to  you  hurtful  ?  " 

A.  "  Why  so  ?  " 

S.  "  As  if,  for  instance,  a  man  believing  that  Zeus  loves  him 
less  than  he  really  does,  should  become  superstitious  and  self-tor 
menting.  Or,  believing  that  Zeus  will  guide  him  less  than  he 
really  will,  he  should  go  his  way  through  life  without  looking 
for  that  guidance :  or  if,  believing  that  Zeus  cares  about  his  con 
quering  his  passions  less  than  he  really  does,  he  should  become 
careless  and  despairing  in  the  struggle  :  or  if,  believing  that  Zeus 
is  less  interested  in  the  welfare  of  mankind  than  He  really  is,  he 
should  himself  neglect  to  assist  them,  and  so  lose  the  glory  of 
being  called  a  benefactor  of  his  country:  would  not  all  these 
mistakes  be  hurtful  ones  ?  " 

"  Certainly,"  said  I :  but  Alcibiades  was  silent. 

S.  "  And  would  not  these  mistakes,  by  the  hypothesis,  them 
selves  punish  him  who  made  them,  without  any  resentment 
whatsoever,  or  Nemesis  of  the  gods,  being  required  for  his 
chastisement  ?  " 

"  It  seems  so,"  said  I. 

S.  "  But  can  we  say  of  such  mistakes,  and  of  the  harm  which 
may  accrue  from  them,  anything  but  that  they  must  both  be  infi 
nite  ;  seeing  that  they  are  mistakes  concerning  an  infinite  Being, 
and  his  infinite  properties,  on  every  one  of  which,  and  on  all 
together,  our  daily  existence  depends  ?  " 

P.  "  It  seems  so." 

S.  "  So  that,  until  such  a  man's  error  concerning  Zeus,  the 
source  of  all  things,  is  cleared  up,  either  in  this  life  or  in  some 
future  one,  we  cannot  but  fear  for  him  infinite  confusion,  misery, 
and  harm,  in  all  matters  which  he  may  take  in  hand  ?  " 

Then  Alcibiades,  angrily, — "  What  ugly  mask  is  this  you  have 
put  on,  Socrates?  You  speak  rather  like  a  priest  trying  to 
frighten  rustics  into  paying  their  first-fruits,  than  a  philosopher 
inquiring  after  that  which  is  beautiful.  But  you  shall  never  ter 
rify  me  into  believing  that  it  is  not  a  noble  thing  to  speak  out 

13 


290  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

whatsoever  a  man  believes,  and  to  go  forward  boldly  in  the  spirit 
of  truth." 

S.  "  Feeling  first,  I  hope,  with  your  staff,  as  would  be  but 
reasonable  in  the  case  of  the  bridge,  whether  your  belief  was 
objectively  or  only  subjectively  true,  lest  you  should  fall  through 
your  subjective  bridge  into  objective  water.  Nevertheless,  leav 
ing  the  bridge  and  the  water,  let  us  examine  a  little  what  this 
said  spirit  of  truth  may  be.  How  do  you  define  it  ?  " 

A.  "  I  assert,  that  whosoever  says  honestly  what  he  believes, 
does  so  by  the  spirit  of  truth." 

S.  "  Then  if  Lyce,  patting  those  soft  cheeks  of  yours,  were  to 
say,  '  Alcibiades,  thou  art  the  fairest  youth  in  Athens/  she  would 
speak  by  the  spirit  of  truth  ?  " 

A.  "  They  say  so." 

S.  "And  they  say  rightly.  But  if  Lyce,  as  is  her  custom, 
wished  by  so  saying  to  cheat  you  into  believing  that  she  loved 
you,  and  thereby  to  wheedle  you  out  of  a  new  shawl,  she  would 
still  speak  by  the  spirit  of  truth  ?  " 

A.  "  I  suppose  so." 

S.  "  But  if,  again,  she  said  the  same  thing  to  Phaethon,  she 
would  still  speak  by  the  spirit  of  truth  ?  " 

"  By  no  means,  Socrates,"  said  I,  laughing. 

S.  "  Be  silent,  fair  boy  ;  you  are  out  of  court  as  an  interested 
party.  Alcibiades  shall  answer.  If  Lyce,  being  really  mad  with 
love,  like  Sappho,  were  to  believe  Phaethon  to  be  fairer  than 
you,  and  say  so,  she  would  still  speak  by  the  spirit  of  truth  ?  " 

A.  "  I  suppose  so." 

S.  "  Do  not  frown  ;  your  beauty  is  in  no  question.  Only  she 
would  then  be  saying  what  is  not  true?" 

"  I  must  answer  for  him  after  all,"  said  I. 

S.  "Then  it  seems,  from  what  has  been  agreed,  that  it  is  indif 
ferent  to  the  spirit  of  truth,  whether  it  speak  truth  or  not.  The 
spirit  seems  to  be  of  an  enviable  serenity.  But  suppose  again, 
that  I  believed  that  Alcibiades  had  an  ulcer  on  his  leg,  and  were 
to  proclaim  the  same  now  to  the  people,  when  they  come  into  the 
Pnyx,  should  1  not  be  speaking  by  the  spirit  of  truth  ?  " 

A.  "  But  that  would  be  a  shameful  and  blackguardly  action." 

S.  "  Be  it  so.  It  seems,  therefore,  that  it  is  indifferent  to  the 
spirit  of  truth  whether  that  which  it  affirms  be  honourable  or 
blackguardly.  Is  it  not  so  ?  " 

A.  "  It  seems  so,  most  certainly,  in  that  case  at  least." 

S.  "  And  in  others,  as  I  think.  But  tell  me — Is  not  the  man 
who  does  what  he  believes,  as  much  moved  by  this  your  spirit  of 
truth  as  he  who  says  what  he  believes  ?  " 

A.  "  Certainly  he  is." 


PHAETHON.  291 

S.  "  Then,  if  I  believed  it  right  to  lie  or  steal,  I,  in  lying  or 
stealing,  should  lie  or  steal  by  the  spirit  of  truth  ?  " 

A.  "  Certainly  :  but  that  is  impossible." 

S.  "  My  fine  fellow,  and  wherefore  ?  I  have  heard  of  a  nation 
among  the  Indians,  who  hold  it  a  sacred  duty  to  murder  every 
one,  not  of  their  own  tribe,  whom  they  can  waylay ;  and  when 
they  are  taken  and  punished  by  the  rulers  of  that  country,  die 
joyfully  under  the  greatest  torments,  believing  themselves  certain 
of  an  entrance  into  the  Elysian  Fields,  in  proportion  to  the 
number  of  murders  which  they  have  committed." 

A.  "  They  must  be  impious  wretches." 

S.  "  Be  it  so.  But  believing  themselves  to  be  right,  they  com 
mit  murder  by  the  spirit  of  truth." 

A.  "  It  seems  to  follow  from  the  argument." 

S.  "  Then  it  is  indifferent  to  the  spirit  of  truth,  whether  the 
action  which  it  prompts  be  right  or  wrong  ?  " 

A.  "  It  must  be  confessed." 

S.  "It  is  therefore  not  a  moral  faculty,  this  spirit  of  truth. 
Let  us  see  now  whether  it  be  an  intellectual  one.  How  are  in 
tellectual  things  defined,  Phaethon  ?  Tell  me,  for  you  are  cunning 
in  such  matters." 

*     P.  "Those  things   which  have  to  do   with   processes  of  the 
mind." 

S.  "  With  right  processes,  or  with  wrong  ?  " 

P.  "  With  right,  of  course." 

S.  "  And  processes  for  what  purpose  ?  " 

P.  "  For  the  discovery  of  facts." 

S.  "  Of  facts  as  they  are,  or  as  they  are  not  ?  " 

P.  "As  they  are." 

S.  "  And  he  who  discovers  facts  as  they  are,  discovers  truth  ; 
while  he  who  discovers  facts  as  they  are  not,  discovers  falsehood  ?  " 

P.  "  He  discovers  nothing,  Socrates." 

S.  "  True ;  but  it  has  been  agreed  already  that  the  spirit  of 
truth  is  indifferent  to  the  question  whether  facts  be  true  or  false, 
but  only  concerns  itself  with  the  sincere  affirmation  of  them, 
whatsoever  they  may  be.  Much  more  then  must  it  be  indifferent 
to  those  processes  by  which  they  are  discovered." 

P.  "How  so?" 

S.  "  Because  it  only  concerns  itself  with  affirmation  con 
cerning  facts ;  but  these  processes  are  anterior  to  that  affirma 
tion." 

P.  "  I  comprehend." 

S.  "  And  much  more  is  it  indifferent  to  whether  those  are  right 
processes  or  not." 

P.  "  Much  more  so." 


292  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

S.  "  It  is  therefore  not  intellectual.  It  remains,  therefore,  that 
it  must  be  some  merely  physical  faculty,  like  that  of  fearing, 
hungering,  or  enjoying  the  sexual  appetite." 

A.  "-Absurd,  Socrates ! " 

S.  "  That  is  the  argument's  concern,  not  ours :  let  us  follow 
manfully  whithersoever  it  may  lead  us." 

A.  "  Lead  on,  thou  sophist ! " 

S.  "It  was  agreed,  then,  that  he  who  does  what  he  thinks 
right,  does  so  by  the  spirit  of  truth — was  it  not  ?  " 

A.  "  It  was." 

S.  "  Then  he  who  eats  when  he  thinks  that  he  ought  to  eat, 
does  so  by  the  spirit  of  truth  ?  " 

A.  "  What  next  ?  " 

S.  "  This  next,  that  he  who  blows  his  nose  when  he  thinks 
that  it  wants  blowing,  blows  his  nose  by  the  spirit  of  truth." 

A.  "  What  next  ?  " 

S.  "  Do  not  frown,  friend.  Believe  me,  in  such  days  as  these, 
I  honour  even  the  man  who  is  honest  enough  to  blow  his  nose 
because  he  finds  that  he  ought  to  do  so.  But  tell  me, — a  horse, 
when  he  shies  at  a  beggar,  does  not  he  also  do  so  by  the  spirit 
of  truth  ?  For  he  believes  sincerely  the  beggar  to  be  something 
formidable,  and  honestly  acts  upon  his  conviction." 

"  Not  a  doubt  of  it,"  said  I,  laughing,  in  spite  of  myself,  at 
Alcibiades's  countenance. 

S.  "  It  is  in  danger,  then,  of  proving  to  be  something  quite 
brutish  and  doggish,  this  spirit  of  truth.  I  should  not  wonder, 
therefore,  if  we  found  it  proper  to  be  restrained." 

A.  "  How  so,  thou  hair-splitter  ?  " 

S.  "  Have  we  not  proved  it  to  be  common  to  man  and  animals  ; 
but  are  not  those  passions  which  we  have  in  common  with  animals 
to  be  restrained  ?  " 

P.  "  Restrain  the  spirit  of  truth,  Socrates  ?  " 

S.  "If  it  be  doggishly  inclined.  As,  for  instance,  if  a  man 
knew  that  his  father  had  committed  a  shameful  act,  and  were  to 
publish  it,  he  would  do  so  by  the  spirit  of  truth.  Yet  such  an 
act  would  be  blackguardly,  and  to  be  restrained." 

P.  "  Of  course." 

S*  "  But  much  more,  if  he  accused  his  father  only  on  his  own 
private  suspicion,  not  having  seen  him  commit  the  act ;  while 
many  others,  who  had  watched  his  father's  character  more  than 
he  did,  assured  him  that  he  was  mistaken." 

P.  "  Such  an  act  would  be  to  be  restrained,  not  merely  as 
blackguardly,  but  as  impious." 

S.  "  Or  if  a  man  believed  things  derogatory  to  the  character 
of  the  Gods,  not  having  seen  them  do  wrong  himself,  while  all 


PHAETHON.  293 

those  who  had  given  themselves  to  the  study  of  divine  things 
assured  him  that  he  was  mistaken,  would  he  not  be  bound  to  re 
strain  an  inclination  to  speak  such  things,  even  if  he  believed 
them  ?  " 

P.  Surely,  Socrates  ;  and  that  even  if  he  believed  that  the 
Gods  did  not  exist  at  all.  For  there  would  be  far  more  chance 
that  he  alone  was  wrong,  and  the  many  right,  than  that  the  many 
were  wrong,  and  he  alone  right.  He  would  therefore  commit  an 
insolent  and  conceited  action,  and,  moreover,  a  cruel  and  shame 
less  one;  for  he  would  certainly  make  miserable,  if  he  were  be 
lieved,  the  hearts  of  many  virtuous  persons  who  had  never 
harmed  him,  for  no  immediate  or  demonstrable  purpose  except 
that  of  pleasing  his  own  self-will ;  and  that  much  more,  were  he 
wrong  in  his  assertion." 

S.  "  Here,  then,  is  another  case  in  which  it  seems  proper  to 
restrain  the  spirit  of  truth,  whatsoever  it  may  be  ?  " 

P.  "  What,  then,  are  we  to  say  of  those  who  speak  fearlessly  and 
openly  their  own  opinions  on  every  subject  ?  for,  in  spite  of  all 
this,  one  cannot  but  admire  them,  whether  rationally  or  irration 
ally." 

S.  "  We  will  allow  them  at  least  the  honour  which  we  do  to 
the  wild  boar,  who  rushes  fiercely  through  thorns  and  brambles 
upon  the  dogs,  not  to  be  turned  aside  by  spears  or  tree-trunks, 
and  indeed  charges  forward  the  more  valiantly  the  more  tightly 
he  shuts  his  eyes.  That  praise  we  can  bestow  on  him,  but,  I 
fear,  no  higher  one.  It  is  expedient,  nevertheless,  to  have  such 
a  temperament,  as  it  is  to  have  a  good  memory,  or  a  loud  voice, 
or  a  straight  nose,  unlike  mine ;  only,  like  other  animal  passions, 
it  must  be  restrained  and  regulated  by  reason  and  the  law  of 
right,  so  as  to  employ  itself  only  on  such  matters  and  to  such  a 
degree  as  they  prescribe." 

"  It  <pay  seem  so  in  the  argument,"  said  I.  "  Yet  no  argument, 
even  of  yours,  Socrates,  with  your  pardon,  shall  convince  me 
that  the  spirit  of  truth  is  not  fair  and  good,  ay,  the  noblest  pos 
session  of  all ;  throwing  away  which,  a  man  throws  away  his 
shield,  and  becomes  unworthy  of  the  company  of  Gods  or  men." 

S.  "  Or  of  beasts  either,  as  it  seems  to  me  and  the  argument. 
Nevertheless,  to  this  point  has  the  argument,  in  its  cunning  and 
malice,  brought  us  by  crooked  paths.  Can  we  find  no  escape?  " 

P.  "  I  know  none." 

S.  "  But  may  it  not  be  possible  that  we,  not  having  been  ini 
tiated,  like  Alcibiades,  into  the  Babylonian  mysteries,  have  some 
what  mistaken  the  meaning  of  that  expression,  '  spirit  of  truth  ?  ' 
For  truth  we  defined  to  be  '  facts  as  they  are.'  The  spirit  of 
truth  then  should  mean,  should  it  not,  the  spirit  of  facts  as  they 
are  ?  " 


294  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

P.  «  It  should." 

S.  "  But  what  shall  we  say  that  this  expression,  in  its  turn, 
means  ?  The  spirit  which  makes  facts  as  they  are  ?  " 

A.  "Surely  not.  That  would  be  the  supreme  Derniurgus 
himself." 

S.  "Of  whom  you  were  not  speaking,  when  you  spoke  of  the 
spirit  of  truth  ?  " 

A.  "  Certainly  not.     I  was  speaking  of  a  spirit  in  man." 

S.  "  And  belonging  to  him  ?  " 

A.  "  Yes." 

S.  "  And  doing — what,  with  regard  to  facts  as  they  are  ?  for 
this  is  just  the  thing  which  puzzles  me." 

A.  "  Telling  facts  as  they  are." 

S.  "  Without  seeing  them  as  they  are  ?  " 

A.  "  How  you  bore  one  !  of  course  not.  It  sees  facts  as  they 
are,  and  therefore  tells  them." 

S.  "  But  perhaps.it  might  see  them  as  they  are,  and  find  it  ex 
pedient,  being  of  the  same  temperament  as  I,  to  hold  its  tongue, 
about  them  ?  Would  it  then  be  still  the  spirit  of  truth  ?  " 

A.  "  It  would,  of  course." 

S.  "  The  man  then  who  possesses  the  spirit  of  truth  will  see 
facts  as  they  are  ?  " 

A.  "  He  will." 

S.  "  And  conversely  ?  " 

A.  "  Yes." 

S.  "  But  if  he  sees  anything  only  as  it  seems  to  him,  and  is 
not  in  fact,  he  will  not,  with  regard  to  that  thing,  see  it  by  the 
spirit  of  truth  ?  " 

A.  "  I  suppose  not." 

S.  "  Neither  then  will  he  be  able  to  speak  of  it  by  the  spirit 
of  truth." 

A.  "Why?"  * 

S.  "  Because,  by  what  we  agreed  before,  it  will  not  be  there 
to  speak  of,  my  wondrous  friend  !  For  it  appeared  to  us,  if  I 
recollect  right,  that  facts  can  only  exist  as  they  are,  and  not  as 
they  are  not,  and  that  therefore  the  spirit  of  truth  had  nothing 
to  do  with  any  facts  but  those  which  are." 

"  But,"  I  interrupted,  "  O  dear  Socrates,  I  fear  much  that  if 
the  spirit  of  truth  be  such  as  this,  it  must  be  beyond  the  reach  of 
man." 

S.  "  Why  then  ?  " 

P.  "  Because  the  immortal  Gods  only  can  see  things  as  they 
really  are,  having  alone  made  all  things,  and  ruling  them  all 
according  to  the  laws  of  each.  They  therefore,  I  much  fear,  will 
be  alone  able  to  behold  them,  how  they  are  really  in  their  inner 


PHAETHON.  295 

nature  and  properties,  and  not  merely  from  the  outside,  and  by 
guess,  as  we  do.  How  then  can  we  obtain  such  a  spirit  ourselves  ?  " 

S.  "  Dear  boy,  you  seem  to  wish  that  I  should,  as  usual,  put 
you  off  with  a  myth,  when  you  begin  to  ask  me  about  those  who 
know  far  more  about  me  than  I  do  about  them.  Nevertheless, 
shall  I  tell  you  a  myth  ?  " 

P.  "  If  you  have  nothing  better." 

S.  "  They  say,  then,  that  Prometheus,  when  he  grew  to  man's 
estate,  found  mankind,  though  they  were  like  him  in  form,  ut 
terly  brutish  and  ignorant,  so  that,  as  ^Eschylus  says  : — 

'  Seeing  they  saw  in  vain, 

Hearing  they  heard  not  ;  but  were  like  the  shapes 
Of  dreams,  and  long  time  did  confuse  all  things 
At  random  : ' 

being,  as  I  suppose,  led  like  the  animals,  only  by  their  private 
judgments  of  things  as  they  seemed  to  each  man,  and  enslaved 
to  that  subjective  truth,  which  we  found  to  be  utterly  careless 
and  ignorant  of  facts  as  they  are.  But  Prometheus,  taking  pity 
on  them,  determined  in  his  mind  to  free  them  from  that  slavery 
and  to  teach  them  to  rise  above  the  beasts,  by  seeing  things  as 
they  are.  He  therefore  made  them  acquainted  with  the  secrets 
of  nature,  and  taught  them  to  build  houses,  to  work  in  wood 
and  metals,  to  observe  the  courses  of  the  stars,  and  all  other 
such  arts  and  sciences,  which  if  any  man  attempts  to  follow 
according  to  his  private  opinion,  and  not  according  to  the  rules 
of  that  art,  which  are  independent  of  him  and  of  his  opinions, 
being  discovered  from  the  unchangeable  laws  of  things  as  they 
are,  he  will  fail.  But  yet  as  the  myth  relates,  they  became 
only  a  more  cunning  sort  of  animals  ;  not  being  wholly  freed 
from  their  original  slavery  to  a  certain  subjective  opinion  about 
themselves,  that  each  man  should,  by  means  of  those  arts  and 
sciences,  please  and  help  himself  only.  Fearing,  therefore,  lest 
their  increased  strength  and  cunning  should  only  enable  them, 
to  prey  upon  each  other  all  the  more  fiercely,  he  stole  fire 
from  heaven,  and  gave  to  each  man  a  share  thereof  for  his 
hearth,  and  to  each  community  for  their  common  altar.  And  by 
the  light  of  this  celestial  fire  they  learnt  to  see  those  celestial  and 
eternal  bonds  between  man  and  man,  as  of  husband  to  wife,  of 
father  to  child,  of  citizen  to  his  country,  and  of  master  to  servant, 
without  which  man  is  but  a  biped  without  feathers,  and  which 
are  in  themselves,  being  independent  of  the  flux  of  matter  and 
time,  most  truly  facts  as  they  are.  And  since  that  time,  whatso 
ever  household  or  nation  has  allowed  these  fires  to  become 
extinguished,  has  sunk  down  again  to  the  level  of  the  brutes  : 
while  those  who  have  passed  them  down  to  their  children  burn- 


296  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

ing  bright  and  strong,  become  partakers  of  the  bliss  of  the  He 
roes,  in  the  Happy  Islands.  It  seems  to  me  then,  Phaethon 
and  Alcibiades,  that  if  we  find  ourselves  in  anywise  destitute  of 
this  heavenly  fire,  we  should  pray  for  the  coming  of  that  day, 
when  Prometheus  shall  be  unbound  from  Caucasus,  if  by  any 
means  he  may  take  pity  on  us  and  on  our  children,  and  again 
bring  us  down  from  heaven  that  fire  which  is  the  spirit  of  truth, 
that  we  may  see  facts  as  they  are.  For  which  if  he  were  to  ask 
Zeus  humbly  and  filially,  I  cannot  believe  that  he  would  refuse 
it.  And  indeed,  I  think  that  the  poets,  as  is  their  custom,  cor 
rupt  the  minds  of  young  men  by  telling  them  that  Zeus  chained 
Prometheus  to  Caucasus  for  his  theft ;  seeing  that  it  befits  such 
a  ruler,  as  I  take  the  Father  of  Gods  and  men  to  be,  to  know 
that  his  subjects  can  only  do  well  by  means  of  his  bounty,  and 
therefore  to  bestow  it  freely,  as  the  kings  of  Persia  do,  on  all 
who  are  willing  to  use  it  in  the  service  of  their  sovereign." 

"  So  then,"  said  Alcibiades  laughing,  "  till  Prometheus  be 
unbound  from  Caucasus,  we  who  have  lost,  as  you  seem  to  hint, 
this  heavenly  fire,  must  needs  go  on  upon  our  own  subjective 
opinions,  having  nothing  better  to  which  to  trust.  Truly,  thou 
sophist,  thy  conclusion  seems  to  me  after  all  not  to  differ  much 
from  that  of  Protagoras." 

S.  "  Ah  dear  boy !  know  you  not  that  to  those  who  have  been 
initiated,  and  as  they  say  in  the  mysteries,  twice  born,  Prome 
theus  is  always  unbound,  and  stands  ready  to  assist  them ;  while 
to  those  who  are  self-willed  and  conceited  of  their  own  opinions, 
he  is  removed  to  an  inaccessible  distance,  and  chained  in  icy 
fetters  on  untrodden  mountain-peaks,  where  the  vulture  ever 
devours  his  fair  heart,  which  sympathizes  continually  with  the 
follies  and  the  sorrows  of  mankind  ?  Of  what  punishment,  then, 
must  not  those  be  worthy,  who  by  their  own  wilfulness  and  self- 
confidence  bind  again  to  Caucasus  the  fair  Titan,  the  friend  of 
men?" 

"  By  Apollo  ! "  said  Alcibiades,  "  this  language  is  more  fit  for 
the  tripod  in  Delphos,  than  for  the  Bema  in  the  Pnyx.  So  fare 
thee  well,  thou  Pythoness!  I  must  go  and  con  over  my  ora 
tion,  at  least  if  thy  prophesying  has  not  altogether  addled  my 
thoughts." 

But  I,  as  soon  as  Alcibiades  was  gone,  for  I  was  ashamed  to 
speak  before,  turning  to  Socrates  said  to  him,  all  but  weeping : — 

"  Oh  Socrates,  what  cruel  words  are  these  which  you  have 
spoken  ?  Are  you  not  ashamed  to  talk  thus  contemptuously  to 
one  like  me,  even  though  he  be  younger  and  less  cunning  in 
argument  than  yourself ;  knowing  as  you  do,  how,  when  I  might 
have  grown  rich  in  my  native  city  of  Rhodes,  and  marrying 


PHAETHON.  297 

there,  as  my  father  purposed,  a  wealthy  merchant's  heiress,  so 
have  passed  my  life  delicately,  receiving  the  profits  of  many  ships 
and  warehouses,  I  yet  preferred  Truth  beyond  riches ;  and  leav 
ing  my  father's  house,  came  to  Athens  in  search  of  wisdom,  dis 
sipating  my  patrimony  upon  one  sophist  after  another,  listening 
greedily  to  Hippias,  and  Polus,  and  Gorgias,  and  Protagoras, 
and  last  of  all  to  you,  hard-hearted  man  that  you  are  ?  For  from 
my  youth  I  loved  and  longed  after  nothing  so  much  as  Truth, 
whatsoever  it  may  be ;  thinking  nothing  so  noble  as  to  know  that 
which  is  Right,  and  knowing  it,  to  do  it.  And  that  longing,  or 
love  of  mine,  which  is  what  I  suppose  Protagoras  meant  by  the 
spirit  of  truth,  I  cherished  as  the  fairest  and  most  divine  posses 
sion,  and  that  for  which  alone  it  was  worth  while  to  live.  For 
it  seemed  to  me,  that  even  if  in  my  search  I  never  attained  to 
truth,  still  it  were  better  to  die  seeking,  than  not  to  seek ;  and 
that  even  if  acting  by  what  I  considered  to  be  the  spirit  of  truth, 
and  doing  honestly  in  every  case  that  which  seemed  right,  I 
should  often,  acting  on  a  false  conviction,  offend  in  ignorance 
against  the  absolute  righteousness  of  the  Gods,  yet  that  such  an 
offence  was  deserving,  if  not  of  praise  for  its  sincerity,  yet  at 
least  of  pity  and  forgiveness  ;  but  by  no  means  to  be  classed,  as 
you  class  it,  with  the  appetites  of  brutes  ;  much  less  to  be  threat 
ened,  as  you  threaten  it,  with  infinite  and  eternal  misery  by  I 
know  not  what  necessary  laws  of  Zeus,  and  to  be  put  off  at  last 
with  some  myth  or  other  about  Prometheus.  Surely  your 
mother  bare  you  a  scoffer  and  pitiless,  Socrates,  and  not,  as  you 
boast,  a  man-midwife  fit  for  fair  youths." 

Then,  smiling  sweetly,  "  Dear  boy,"  said  he,  "  were  I  such  as 
you  fancy,  how  should  I  be  here  now  discoursing  with  you  con 
cerning  truth,  instead  of  conning  my  speech  for  the  Pnyx,  like 
Alcibiades,  that  I  may  become  a  demagogue,  deceiving  the  mob 
with  flattery,  and  win  for  myself  houses,  and  lands,  and  gold, 
and  slave-girls,  and  fame,  and  power,  even  to  a  tyranny  itself? 
For  in  this  way  I  might  have  made  my  tongue  a  profitable  mem 
ber  of  my  body  ;  but  now,  being  hurried  up  and  down  in  barren 
places,  like  one  mad  of  love,  from  my  longing  after  fair  youths, 
I  waste  my  speech  on  them  ;  receiving,  as  is  the  wont  of  true 
lovers,  only  curses  and  ingratitude  from  their  arrogance.  But 
tell  me,  thou  proud  Adonis — This  spirit  of  truth  in  thee,  which 
thou  thoughtest,  and  rightly,  thy  most  noble  possession — did  it 
desire  truth  or  not  ?  " 

P.  "  But,  Socrates,  I  told  you  that  very  thing,  and  said  that  it 
was  a  longing  after  truth,  which  I  could  not  restrain  or  disobey." 

S.  "  Tell  me  now,  does  one  long  for  that  which  one  possesses, 
01-  for  that  which  one  does  not  possess  ?  " 
13* 


298  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

P.  "  For  that  which  one  does  not  possess." 

S.  "  And  is  one  in  love  with  that  which  is  one's  self,  or  with  that 
which  is  not  ?  " 

P.  "  With  that  which  is  not  one's  self,  thou  mocker.  We  are 
not  all,  surely,  like  Narcissus  ?  " 

S.  "  No,  by  the  dog  !  not  quite  all.  But  see  now  :  it  appears 
that  when  any  one  is  in  love  with  a  thing,  and  longs  for  it,  as 
thou  didst  for  truth,  it  must  be  something  which  is  not  himself, 
and  which  he  does  not  possess  ?  " 

P.  «  True." 

S.  "  You,  then,  while  you  were  loving  facts  as  they  are,  and 
longing  to  see  them  as  they  are,  yet  did  not  possess  that  which 
you  longed  for  ?  " 

P.  "  True,  indeed  ;  else  why  should  I  have  been  driven  forth 
by  the  anger  of  the  gods,  like  Bellerophon,  to  pace  the  Aleian 
plain,  eating  my  own  soul,  if  I  had  possessed  that  for  which  I 
longed?" 

S.  "  Well  said,  dear  boy.  But  see  again.  This  truth  which 
you  loved,  and  which  was  not  yourself  or  part  of  yourself,  was 
certainly  also  nothing  of  your  own  making  ? — Though  they  say 
that  Pygmalion  was  enamoured  of  the  statue  which  he  himself 
had  carved." 

P.  "  But  he  was  miserable,  Socrates,  till  the  statue  became 
alive." 

S.  "  They  say  so ;  but  what  has  that  to  do  with  the  argu 
ment?" 

P.  "  I  know  not.  But  it  seems  to  me  horrible,  as  it  did  to 
Pygmalion,  to  be  enamoured  of  anything  which  cannot  return 
your  love,  but  is,  as  it  were,  your  puppet.  Should  we  not  think 
it  a  shameful  thing,  if  a  mistress  were  to  be  enamoured  of  one  of 
her  own  slaves  ?  " 

S.  "  We  should ;  and  that,  I  suppose,  because  the  slave  would 
have  no  free  choice  whether  to  refuse  or  to  return  his  mistress's 
love ;  but  would  be  compelled,  being  a  slave,  to  submit  to  her, 
even  if  she  were  old,  or  ugly,  or  hateful  to  him  ?  " 

P.  "Of course." 

S.  "  And  should  we  not  say,  Phaethon,  that  there  was  no  true 
enjoyment  in  such  love,  even  on  the  part  of  the  mistress ;  nay 
that  it  was  not  woithy  of  the  name  of  love  at  all,  but  was  merely 
something  base,  such  as  happens  to  animals  ?  " 

P.  "  We  should  say  so  rightly." 

S.  "  Tell  me,  then,  Phaethon, — for  a  strange  doubt  has  en 
tered  my  mind  on  account  of  your  words. — This  truth  of  which 
you  were  enamoured,  seems,  from  what  has  been  agreed,  not  to 
be  a  part  of  yourself,  nor  a  creation  of  your  own,  like  Pygma- 


PHAETHON.  299 

lion's  statue : — how  then  has  it  not  happened  to  you  to  be  even 
more  miserable  than  Pygmalion  till  you  were  sure  that  truth 
loved  you  in  return  ? — and,  moreover,  till  you  were  sure  that 
truth  had  free  choice  as  to  whether  it  should  return  or  refuse 
your  love  ?  For,  otherwise,  you  would  be  in  danger  of  being 
found  suffering  the  same  base  passion  as  a  mistress  enamoured 
of  a  slave  who  cannot  resist  her." 
P.  "  I  am  puzzled,  Socrates." 

8.  "  Shall  we  rather  say,  then,  that  you  were   enamoured,  not 
of  truth  itself,  but  of  the  spirit  of  truth  ?     For  we  have  been  all 
along  defining  truth  to  be  '  facts  as  they  are,'  have  we  not  ?  " 
P.  "  We  have." 

S.  "  But  there  are  many  facts  as  they  are,  whereof  to  be  en 
amoured  would  be  base,  for  they  cannot  return  your  love.  As, 
for  instance,  that  one  and  one  make  two,  or  that  a  horse  has  four 
legs.  With  respect  to  such  facts,  you  would  be,  would  you  not, 
in  the  same  position  as  a  mistress  towards  her  slave  ?  " 

P.  "  Certainly.  It  seems,  then,  better  to  assume  the  other 
alternative." 

S.  "  It  does.     But  does  it  not  follow,  that  when  you  were  en 
amoured  of  this  spirit,  you  did  not  possess  it  ?  " 
P.  "  I  fear  so,  by  the  argument." 

"  And  I  fear,  too,  that  we  agreed  that  he  only  who  possessed 
the  spirit  of  truth  saw  facts  as  they  are ;  for  that  was  involved 
in  our  definition  of  the  spirit  of  truth." 

P.  "  But,  Socrates,  I  knew,  at  least,  that  one  and  one  made 
two,  and  that  a  horse  had  four  legs.  I  must  then  have  seen 
some  facts  as  they  are." 

S.  "  Doubtless,  fair  boy  ;  but  not  all." 
P.  "  I  do  not  pretend  to  that." 

S.  "  But  if  you  had  possessed  the  spirit  of  truth,  you  would 
have  seen  all  facts  whatsoever  as  they  are.  For  he  who  possesses 
a  thing  can  surely  employ  it  freely  for  all  purposes  which  are 
not  contrary  to  the  nature  of  that  thing  ;  can  he  not  ?" 

P.  "  Of  course  he  can.  But  if  I  did  not  possess  the  spirit  of 
truth,  how  could  I  see  any  truth  whatsoever  ?  " 

S.  "  Suppose,  dear  boy,  that  instead  of  your  possessing  it,  it 
were  possible  for  it  to  possess  you  ;  and  possessing  you,  to  show 
you  as  much  of  itself,  or  as  little,  as  it  might  choose,  and  concern 
ing  such  things  only  as  it  might  choose :  would  not  that  explain 
the  dilemma  ?  " 

P.  "  It  would  assuredly." 

S.  "  Let  us  see,  then,  whether  this  spirit  of  truth  may  not  be 
something  which  is   capable  of  possessing  you,  and  employing ' 
you,  rather  than  of  being  possessed  and  employed  by  you.     To 


300  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

me,  indeed,  this  spirit  seems  likely  to  be  some  demon  or  deity, 
and  that  one  of  the  greatest." 

P.  "Why  then?" 

S.  "  Can  lifeless  and  material  things  see  ?  " 

P.  "  Certainly  not ;  only  live  ones." 

S.  "  This  spirit,  then,  seems  to  be  living  ;  for  it  sees  things  as 
they  are." 

P.  "Yes." 

S.  "And  it  is  also  intellectual;  for  intellectual  facts  can  be 
only  seen  by  an  intellectual  being." 

P.  "  True." 

S.  "  And  also  moral ;  for  mofal  facts  can  only  be  seen  by  a 
moral  being." 

P.  "  True  also." 

S.  "  But  this  spirit  is  evidently  not  a  man ;  it  remains,  there 
fore,  that  it  must  be  some  demon." 

P.  "  But  why  one  of  the  greatest  ?  " 

S.  "  Tell  me,  Phaethon,  is  not  God  to  be  numbered  among 
facts  as  they  are  ?  " 

P.  ", Assuredly;  for  he  is  before  all  others,  and  more  eternal 
and  absolute  than  all." 

S.  "  Then  this  spirit  of  truth  must  also  be  able  to  see  God  as 
he  is." 

P.  "  It  is  probable." 

S.  "  And  certain,  if,  as  we  agreed,  it  be  the  very  spirit  which 
sees  all  facts  whatsoever  as  they  are.  Now  tell  me,  can  the  less 
see  the  greater  as  it  is  ?  " 

P.  "  I  think  not ;  for  an  animal  cannot  see  a  man  as  he  is,  but 
only  that  part  of  him  in  which  he  is  like  an  animal,  namely,  his 
outward  figure  and  his  animal  passions ;  but  not  his  moral  sense 
or  reason,  for  of  them  it  has  itself  no  share." 

S.  "  True  ;  and  in  like  wise,  a  man  of  less  intellect  could  not 
see  a  man  of  greater  intellect  than  himself,  as  he  is,  but  only  a 
part  of  his  intellect." 

P.  "  Certainly." 

S.  "  And  does  not  the  same  thing  follow  from  what  we  said 
just  now,  that  God's  conceptions  of  himself  must  be  the  only 
perfect  conceptions  of  him  ?  For  if  any  being  could  see  God 
as  he  is,  the  same  would  be  able  to  conceive  of  him  as  he  is  ; 
which  we  agreed  was  impossible." 

P.  "  True." 

S.  "  Then,  surely,  this  spirit  which  sees  God  as  he  is,  must 
be  equal  with  God." 

P.  "  It  seems  probable  ;  but  none  is  equal  to  God  except  him 
self." 


PHAETHON.  301 

S.  "  Most  true,  Phaethon.  But  what  shall  we  say  now,  but 
that  this  spirit  of  truth,  whereof  thou  hast  been  enamoured,  is, 
according  to  the  argument,  none  other  than  Zeus,  who  alone  com 
prehends  all  things,  and  sees  them  as  they  are,  because  he  alone 
has  given  to  each  its  inward  and  necessary  laws  ?  " 

P.  "  But,  Socrates,  there  seems  something  impious  in  the 
thought." 

S.  "  Impious,  truly,  if  we  held  that  this  spirit  of  truth  was  a 
part  of  your  own  self.  But  we  agreed  that  it  was  not  a  part  of 
you,  but  something  utterly  independent  of  you," 

P.  "  Noble  would  the  news  be,  Socrates,  were  it  true ;  yet  it 
seems  to  me  beyond  belief." 

S.  "  Did  we  not  prove  just  now  concerning  Zeus,  that  all  mis 
takes  concerning  him  were  certain  to  be  mistakes  of  defect  ?  " 

P.  "  We  did,  indeed." 

S.  "  How  do  you  know,  then,  that  you  have  not  fallen  into 
some  such  error,  and  have  suspected  Zeus  to  be  less  condescend 
ing  towards  you  than  he  really  is  ?  " 

P.  "  Would  that  it  were  so  !     But  I  fear  it  is  too  fair  a  hope." 

S.  "  Do  I  seem  to  thee  now,  dear  boy,  more  insolent  and  un 
feeling  than  Protagoras,  when  he  tried  to  turn  thee  away  from 
the  search  after  absolute  truth,  by  saying  sophistically  that  it 
was  an  attempt  of  the  Titans  to  scale  heaven,  and  bade  thee  be 
content  with  asserting  shamelessly  and  brutishly  thine  own  sub 
jective  opinions  ?  For  I  do  not  bid  thee  scale  the  throne  of 
Zeus,  into  whose  presence  none  could  arrive,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
unless  he  himself  willed  it;  but  to  believe  that  he  has  given 
thee  from  thy  childhood  a  glimpse  of  his  own  excellence,  that  so 
thy  heart,  conjecturing,  as  in  the  case  of  a  veiled  statue,  from 
one  part  the  beauty  of  the  rest,  might  become  enamoured  thereof, 
and  long  for  that  sight  of  him  which  is  the  highest  and  only 
good,  that  so  his  splendour  may  give  thee  light  to  see  facts  as 
they  are." 

P.  "  Oh,  Socrates !  and  how  is  this  blessedness  to  be  attained  ?  " 

S.  "  Even  as,  the  myths  relate,  the  Nymphs  obtained  the  em 
braces  of  the  Gods  ;  by  pleasing  him  and  obeying  him  in  all 
things,  lifting  up  daily  pure  hands  and  a  thankful  heart,  if  by 
any  means  he  may  condescend  to  purge  thine  eyes,  that  thou 
mayest  see  clearly,  and  without  those  motes,  and  specks,  and  dis 
tortions  of  thine  own  organ  of  vision,  which  flit  before  the  eye 
balls  of  those  who  have  been  drunk  over-night,  and  which  are 
called  by  sophists  subjective  truth ;  watching  everywhere  anxi 
ously  and  reverently  for  those  glimpses  of  his  beauty,  which  he 
will  vouchsafe  to  thee  more  and  more  as  thou  pro  vest  thyself 
worthy  of  them,  and  will  reward  thy  love  by  making  thee  more 


302  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

and  more  partaker  of  his  own  spirit  of  truth ;  whereby  seeing 
facts  as  they  are,  thou  wilt  see  him  who  has  made  them  ac 
cording  to  his  own  ideas,  that  they  may  be  a  mirror  of  his  un 
speakable  splendour.  Is  not  this  a  fairer  hope  for  thee,  O 
Phaethon,  than  that  which  Protagoras  held  out  to  thee, — that 
neither  seeing  Zeus,  nor  seeing  facts  as  they  are,  nor  affirming 
any  truth  whatsoever,  nor  depending  for  thy  knowledge  on  any 
one  but  thine  own  ignorant  self,  thou  mightest  nevertheless  be 
so  fortunate  as  to  escape  punishment ;  not  knowing,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  that  such  a  state  of  ignorance  and  blindfold  rashness,  even 
if  Tartarus  were  a  dream  of  the  poets  or  the  priests,  is  in  itself 
the  most  fearful  of  punishments  ?  " 

P.  "  It  is,  indeed,  my  dear  Socrates.  Yet  what  are  we  to  say 
of  those  who,  sincerely  loving  and  longing  after  knowledge,  yet 
arrive  at  false  conclusions,  which  are  proved  to  be  false  by  con 
tradicting  each  other  ?  " 

S.  "  We  are  to  say,  Phaethon,  that  they  have  not  loved  knowl 
edge  enough  to  desire  utterly  to  see  facts  as  they  are,  but  only  to 
see  them  as  they  would  wish  them  to  be  ;  and  loving  themselves 
rather  than  Zeus,  have  wished  to  remodel  in  some  things  or  other 
his  universe,  according  to  their  own  subjective  opinions.  By 
this,  or  by  some  other  act  of  self-will,  or  self-conceit,  or  self-de 
pendence,  they  have  compelled  Zeus,  not,  as  I  think,  without  pity 
and  kindness  to  them,  to  withdraw  from  them  in  some  degree  the 
sight  of  his  own  beauty.  We  must,  therefore,  I  fear,  liken  them 
to  Acharis,  the  painter  of  Lemnos,  who,  intending  to  represent 
Phoebus,  painted  from  a  mirror  a  copy  of  his  own  defects  and 
deformities;  or  perhaps  to  that  Nymph,  who  finding  herself 
beloved  by  Phoebus,  instead  of  reverently  and  silently  returning 
the  affection,  boasted  of  it  to  all  her  neighbours,  as  a  token  of 
her  own  beauty,  and  despised  the  God ;  so  that  he,  being  angry, 
changed  her  into  a  chattering  magpie ;  or  again  to  Arachne,  who 
having  been  taught  the  art  of  weaving  by  Athene,  pretended  to 
compete  with  her  own  instructress,  and  being  metamorphosed  by 
her  into  a  spider,  was  condemned,  like  the  sophists,  to  spin  out 
of  her  own  entrails  endless  ugly  webs,  which  are  destroyed,  as 
soon  as  finished,  by  every  slave-girl's  broom." 

P.  "  But  shall  we  despise  and  hate  such,  O  Socrates  ?  " 

S.  "  No,  dearest  boy,  we  will  rather  pity  and  instruct  them 
lovingly ;  remembering  always  that  we  shall  become  such  as 
they  the  moment  we  begin  to  fancy  that  truth  is  our  own  posses 
sion,  and  not  the  very  beauty  of  Zeus  himself,  which  he  shows 
to  those  whom  he  will,  and  in  such  measure  as  he  finds  them 
worthy  to  behold.  But  to  me,  considering  how  great  must  be 
the  condescension  of  Zeus  in  unveiling  to  any  man,  even  the 


PHAETHON.  303 

worthiest,  the  least  portion  of  his  own  loveliness,  there  has  come 
at  times  a  sort  of  dream,  that  the  divine  splendour  will  at  last 
pierce  through  and  illumine  all  dark  souls,  even  in  the. house  of 
Hades,  showing  them,  as  by  a  great  sunrise,  both  what  they 
themselves,  and  what  all  other  things  are,  really  and  in  the  sight 
of  Zeus ;  which  if  it  happened,  even  to  Ixion,  I  believe  that  his 
wheel  would  stop,  and  his  fetters  drop  off  of  themselves,  and 
that  he  would  return  freely  to  the  upper  air,  for  as  long  as  he 
himself  might  choose." 

Just  then  the  people  began  to  throng  into  the  Pnyx ;  and  we 
took  our  places  with  the  rest  to  hear  the  business  of  the  day, 
after  Socrates  had  privately  uttered  this  prayer : — 

"  O  Zeu,  give  to  me  and  to  all  who  shall  counsel  here  this  day, 
that  spirit  of  truth  by  which  we  may  behold  that  whereof  we 
deliberate,  as  it  is  in  thy  sight ! " 


"As  I  expected,"  said  Templeton,  with  a  smile,  as  I  folded  up 
my  manuscript.  "  My  friend  the  parson  could  not  demolish  the 
poor  Professor's  bad  logic  without  a  little  professional  touch  by 
way  of  finish." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"  Oh — never  mind.  Only  I  owe  you  little  thanks  for  sweeping 
away  any  one  of  my  lingering  sympathies  with  Mr.  Windrush,  if 
all  you  can  offer  me  instead  is  the  confounded  old  nostrum  of 
religion  over  again." 

"  Heyday,  friend  !     What  next  ?  " 

•    "  Really,  my  dear  fellow,  I  beg  your  pardon.     I  forgot  that  I 
was  speaking  to  a  clergyman." 

"  Pray  don't  beg  my  pardon  on  that  ground.  If  what  you  say 
be  right,  a  clergyman  above  all  others  ought  to  hear  it ;  and  if  it 
be  wrong,  and  a  symptom  of  spiritual  disease,  he  ought  to  hear 
it  all  the  more.  But  I  cannot  tell  whether  you  are  right  or 
wrong,  till  I  know  what  you  mean  by  religion ;  for  there  is  a 
great  deal  of  very  truly  confounded  and  confounding  religion 
abroad  in  the  world  just  now,  as  there  has  been  in  all  ages  ;  and 
perhaps  you  may  be  alluding  to  that." 

Templeton  sat  silent  for  a  few  minutes,  playing  with  the  tackle 
in  his  fly-book,  and  then  murmured  to  himself  the  well-known 
lines  of  Lucretius : — 


304  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

"  '  Humana  ante  oculos  foede  cum  vita  jaceret 
In  terris  oppressa  gravi  sub  Relligione 
Quse  caput  a  coeli  regionibus  ostendebat, 
Horribili  super  aspectu  rnortalibus  instans : — ' 

"  .  .  .  .  There  ! — blasphemous,  reprobate  fellow,  am  I  not  ?  " 

"  On  the  contrary,"  1  said,  "  I  think  that  in  the  sense  in  which 
Lucretius  intended  that  the  lines  should  be  taken,  they  contain  a 
great  deal  of  truth.  He  had  seen  the  basest  and  foulest  crimes 
spring  from  that  which  he  calls  Relligio,  and  he  had  a  full  right 
to  state  that  fact.  I  am  not  aware  that  one  blasphemes  the 
Catholic  and  Apostolic  Faith  by  saying  that  the  devilries  of  the 
Spanish  Inquisition  were  the  direct  offspring  of  that  '  religious 
sentiment '  which  Mr.  Windrush's  school — though  they  are  at  all 
events  right  in  saying  that  its  source  is  in  man  himself,  and  not 
in  the  regionibus  Cceli — are  now  glorifying,  as  something  which 
enables  man  to  save  his  own  soul  without  the  interference  of 
'  The  Deity,' — indeed,  whether  '  The  Deity  '  chooses  or  not." 

"  Do  leave  those  poor  Emersonians  alone  for  a  few  minutes, 
and  tell  me  how  you  can  reconcile  what  you  have  just  said  with 
your  own  dialogue  ?  " 

"Why  not?" 

"  Is  not  Lucretius  glorying  in  the  notion  that  the  Gods  do  not 
trouble  themselves  with  mortals,  while  you  have  been  asserting 
that  '  The  Deity '  troubles  himself  even  with  the  souls  of 
heathens  ?  " 

"  Certainly.  But  that  is  quite  a  distinct  matter  from  his  dis 
like  of  what  he  calls  '  Relligio'  In  that  dislike  I  can  sympa 
thize  fully  :  but  on  his  method  of  escape  Mr.  Windrush  will 
probably  look  with  mgre  complaisance  than  I  do,  who  call  it  by 
the  ugly  name  of  Atheism." 

u  Then  I  fear  you  would  call  me  an  Atheist,  if  you  knew  all. 
So  we  had  better  say  no  more  about  it." 

"  A  most  curious  speech,  certainly,  to  make  to  a  parson,  or 
soul-curer  by  profession  !  " 

"  Why,  what  on  earth  have  you  to  do  but  to  abhor  and  flee 
me  ?  "  asked  he,  with  a  laugh,  though  by  no  means  a  merry  one. 

"  Would  your  having  a  headache  be  a  reason  for  the  medical 
man's  running  away  from  you,  or  coming  to  visit  you  ?  " 

"  Ah,  but  this,  you  know,  is  my  *  fault,'  and  my  '  crime,'  and 
my  '  sin.'  Eh  ?  "  and  he  laughed  again. 

"  Would  the  doctor  visit  you  the  less,  because  it  was  your  own 
fault  that  your  head  ached  ?  " 

"  Ah,  but  suppose  I  professed  openly  no  faith  in  his  powers  of 
curing,  and  had  a  great  hankering  after  unaccredited  Homoso- 
pathies,  like  Mr.  Windrush's  ;  would  not  that  be  a  fair  cause 


PHAETHON.  305 

for  interdiction  from  fire  and  water,  sacraments  and  Christian 
burial?" 

"  Come,  come,  Templeton,"  I  said  ;  "  you  shall  not  thus  jest 
away  serious  thoughts  with  an  old  friend.  I  know  you  are  ill  at 
ease.  Why  not  talk  over  the  matter  with  me  fairly  and  soberly  ? 
How  do  you  know,  till  you  have  tried,  whether  I  can  help  you  or 
not  ?  " 

"  Because  I  know  that  your  arguments  will  have  no  force  with 
me ;  they  will  demand  of  me,  or  assume  in  me,  certain  faculties, 
sentiments,  notions,  experiences — call  them  wThat  you  like — I  am 
beginning  to  suspect  sometimes  with  Cabanis  that  they  are  '  a 
product  of  the  small  intestines  ! ' — which  I  never  have  had,  and 
never  could  make  myself  have,  and  now  don't  care  whether  I 
have  them  or  not." 

"  On  my  honour,  I  will  address  you  only  as  what  you  are,  and 
know  yourself  to  be.  But  what  are  these  faculties,  so  strangely 
beyond  my  friend  Templeton's  reach  ?  He  used  to  be  distin 
guished  at  college  for  a  very  clear  head,  and  a  very  kind  heart, 
and  the  nicest  sense  of  honour  which  I  ever  saw  in  living  man  ; 
and  I  have  not  heard  that  they  have  failed  him  since  he  became 
Templeton  of  Templeton.  And  as  for  his  Churchman  ship,  were 
not  the  county  papers  ringing  last  month  with  the  accounts  of  the 
beautiful  new  church  which  he  had  built,  and  the  stained  glass 
which  he  brought  from  Belgium,  and  the  marble  font  which  he 
brought  from  Italy ;  and  how  he  had  even  given  for  an  altar- 
piece  his  own  pet  Luini,  the  gem  of  Templeton  House  ?  " 

"  Effeminate  picture  !  "  he  said.  "  It  was  part  and  parcel  of 
the  idea.  .  .  ." 

Before  I  could  ask  him  what  he  meant,  he  looked  up  suddenly 
at  me  with  deep  sadness  on  his  usually  nonchalant  face. 

"  Well,  my  dear  fellow,  I  suppose  I  must  tell  you  all,  as  I 
have  told  you  so  much  without  your  shaking  the  dust  off  your 
feet  against  me,  and  consulting  Bradshaw  for  the  earliest  train  to 
Shrewsbury.  You  knew  my  dear  mother  ?  " 

"  I  did.     The  best  of  women." 

"  The  best  of  women,  and  the  best  of  mothers.  But,  if  you 
recollect,  she  was  a  great  Low-church  saint." 

"  Why  '  but '  ?  How  does  that  derogate  in  any  wise  from  her 
excellence." 

"  Not  from  her  excellence  ;  God  forbid  !  or  from  the  excellence 
of  the  people  of  her  own  party,  whom  she  used  to  have  round 
her,  and  who  were,  some  of  them,  I  do  believe,  as  really  earnest, 
and  pious,  and  charitable,  and  all  that,  as  human  beings  could  be. 
But  it  did  take  away  very  much  indeed  from  her  influence  on 
me." 


306  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

"  Surely  she  did  not  neglect  to  teach  you." 

"  It  is  a  strange  thing  J;o  say,  but  she  rather  taught  me  too 
much.  I  don't  deny  that  it  may  have  been  my  own  fault.  I 
don't  blame  her,  or  any  one.  But  you  know  what  I  was  at  col 
lege—no  worse  than  other  men,  I  dare  say  ;  but  no  better.  I 
had  no  reason  for  being  better." 

"  No  reason  ?     Surely  she  gave  you  reasons." 

"  There — you  have  touched  the  ailing  nerve  now.  The  rea 
sons  were  what  you  would  call  paralogisms.  They  had  no  more 
to  do  with  me  than  with  those  trout." 

"  You  mistake,  friend,  you  mistake,  indeed,"  said  I. 

"  I  don't  mistake  at  all  about  this  ;  that  whether  or  not  the 
reasons  in  themselves  had  to  do  with  me,  the  way  in  which  she 
put  them  made  them  practically  so  much  Hebrew.  She  de 
manded  of  me,  as  the  only  grounds  on  which  I  was  to  consider 
myself  safe  from  hell,  certain  fears  and  hopes  which  I  did  not 
feel,  and  experiences  which  I  did  not  experience ;  and  it  was  my 
fault,  and  a  sign  of  my  being  in  a  wrong  state — to  use  no  harder 
term — that  I  did  not  feel  them ;  and  yet  it  was  only  God's  grace 
which  could  make  me  feel  them :  and  so  I  grew  up  with  a  dark 
secret  notion  that  I  was  a  very  bad  boy :  but  that  it  was  God's 
fault  and  not  mine  that  I  was  so." 

"  You  were  ripe  indeed  then,"  said  I  sadly,  "  like  hundreds 
more,  for  Professor  Windrush's  teaching." 

;'  I  will  come  to  that  presently.  But  in  the  mean  time, — was 
it  my  fault  ?  I  was  never  what  you  call  a  devout  person.  My 
'  organ  of  veneration,'  as  the  phrenologists  would  say,  was  never " 
very  large.  I  was  a  shrewd  dashing  boy,  enjoying  life  to  the 
finger-tips,  and  enjoying  above  all,  I  will  say,  pleasing  my  mother 
in  every  way,  except  in  the  understanding  what  she  told  me, — 
and  what  I  felt  I  could  not  understand.  But  as  I  grew  older, 
and  watched  her,  and  the  men  round  her,  I  began  to  suspect  that 
religion  and  effeminacy  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with  each  other. 
For  the  women,  whatsoever  their  temperaments,  or  even  their 
tastes  might  be,  took  to  this  to  me  incomprehensible  religion 
naturally  and  instinctively  :  while  the  very  few  men  who  were 
in  their  clique  were — I  don't  deny  some  of  them  were  good  men 
enough — if  they  had  been  men  at  all :  if  they  had  been  well- 
read,  or  well-bred,  or  gallant,  or  clear-headed,  or  liberal-minded, 
or,  in  short,  any  thing  but  the  silky,  smooth-tongued  hunt-the- 
slippers  nine  out  of  ten  of  them  were.  I  recollect  well  asking 
my  mother  once,  whether  there  would  not  be  five  times  more 
women  than  men  in  heaven, — and  her  answering  me  sadly  and 
seriously,  that  she  feared  there  would  be.  And  in  the  mean 
time  she  brought  me  up  to  pray  and  hope  that  I  might  some  day 


PHAETHON.  307 

be  converted,  and  become  a  child  of  God.  .  .  .  And  one  could 
not  help  wishing  to  enjoy  one's  self  as  much  as  possible  before  that 
event  happened." 

"  Before  that  event  happened,  my  dear  fellow  ?  Pardon  me, 
but  your  tone  is  somewhat  irreverent." 

"  Very  likely.  I  had  no  reason  put  before  me  for  regarding 
such  a  change  as  any  thing  but  an  unpleasant  doom,  which  would 
cut  me  off,  or  ought  to  do  so,  from  field  sports,  from  poetry,  from 
art,  from  science,  from  politics, — for  Christians,  I  was  told,  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  politics  of  this  world, — from  man  and  all 
man's  civilization  in  short;  and  leave  to  me,  as  the  only  two 
lawful  indulgencies,  those  of  living  in  a  good  house,  and  beget 
ting  a  family  of  children." 

"  And  did  you  throw  off  the  old  Creeds  for  the  sake  of  the 
civilization  which  you  fancied  that  they  forbid  ?  " 

"  No  ...  I  am  a  Churchman,  you  know  ;  principally  on 
political  grounds,  or  from  custom,  or  from, — the  devil  knows 
what,  perhaps, — I  do  not." 

"  Probably  it  is  God,  and  not  the  devil,  who  knows  why,  Tem- 
pleton." 

"  Be  it  so  ...  Frightful  as  it  is  to  have  to  say  it  ...  I  do 
not  so  much  care  ...  I  suppose  it  is  all  right :  if  it  is  not,  it 
will  all  come  right  at  last.  And  in  the  mean  time,  I  compro 
mise,  like  the  rest  of  the  world  ;  and  hear  Jane  making  the  chil 
dren  every  week-day  pray  that  they  may  become  God's  children, 
and  then  teaching  them  every  Sunday  evening  the  Catechism, 
which  says  that  they  are  so  already.  I  don't  understand  it.  ... 
I  suppose  if  it  was  important,  one  would  understand  it.  One  knows 
right  from  wrong,  you  know,  and  other  fundamentals.  If  that 
were  necessary,  one  would  know  that  too." 

"  But  can  you  submit  quietly  to  such  a  barefaced  contradic 
tion  ?  " 

"  I  ?  I  am  only  a  plain  country  squire.  Of  course  I  should 
call  such  dealing  with  an  act  of  parliament  a  lie  and  a  sham  .  .  . 
But  about  these  things,  I  fancy,  the  women  know  best.  Jane  is 
ten  thousand  times  as  good  as  I  am  .  .  .  you  don't  know  half  her 
worth.  .  .  .  And  I  haven't  the  heart  to  contradict  her, — nor  the 
right  either  ;  for  I  have  no  reasons  to  give  her  ;  no  faith  to  sub 
stitute  for  hers." 

"  Our  friend,  the  High-church  curate,  could  have  given  you  a 
few  plain  reasons,  I  should  think." 

"  Of  course  he  could.  And  I  believe  in  my  heart  the  man  is 
in  the  right  in  calling  Jane  wrong.  He  has  honesty  and  com 
mon  sense  on  his  side,  just  as  he  has  when  he  calls  the  present 
state  of  Convocation,  in  the  face  of  that  prayer  for  God's  Spirit 


308  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

on  its  deliberations,  a  blasphemous  lie  and  sham.  Of  course  it  is. 
Any  ensign  in  a  marching  regiment  could  tell  us  that,  from  his 
mere  sense  of  soldier's  honour.  But  then — if  she  is  wrong,  is  he 
right  ?  How  do  I  know  ?  I  want  reasons  :  he  gives  me  historic 
authorities." 

"And  very  good  things  too  ;  for  they  are  fair  phenomena  for 
induction." 

"  But  how  will  proving  to  me  that  certain  people  once  thought 
a  thing  right,  prove  to  me  that  it  is  right  ?  Good  people  think 
differently  every  day.  Good  people  have  thought  differently  about 
those  very  matters  in  every  age.  I  want  some  proof  which  will 
coincide  with  the  little  which  I  do  know  about  science  and  phi 
losophy.  They  must  fight  out  their  own  battle,  if  they  choose  to 
fight  it  on  mere  authority.  If  one  could  but  have  the  implicit 
faith  of  a  child,  it  would  be  all  very  well :  but  one  can't.  If  one 
has  once  been  fool  enough  to  think  about  these  things,  one  must 
have  reasons,  or  something  better  than  mere  ipse  dixits,  or  one 
can't  believe  them.  I  should  be  glad  enough  to  believe  ; — Do 
you  suppose  that  I  don't  envy  poor  dear  Jane  from  morning  to 
night  ? — but  I  can't.  And  so  ...  ." 

"And  so  what?"  I  asked. 

"  And  so,  I  believe,  I  am  growing  to  have  no  religion  at  all, 
and  no  substitute  for  it  either ;  for  I  feel  I  have  no  ground  or 
reason  for  admiring  or  working  out  any  subject.  I  have  tired  of 
philosophy. — Perhaps  it's  all  wrong, — at  least  I  can't  see  what  it 
has  to  do  with  God,  and  Christianity,  and  all  which,  if  it  is  true, 
must  be  more  important  than  any  thing  else.  I  have  tired  of  art 
for  the  same  reason.  How  can  I  be  any  thing  but  a  wretched 
dilettante,  when  I  have  no  principles  to  ground  my  criticism  on, 
beyond  bosh'  about  '  The  Beautiful  ? '  1  did  pluck  up  heart  and 
read  Mr.  Ruskin's  books  greedily  when  they  came  out,  because  I 
heard  he  was  a  good  Christian.  But  I  fell  upon  a  little  tract  of 
his,  Notes  on  Sheep/olds,  and  gave  him  up  again,  when  I  found 
that  he  had  a  leaning  to  that  '  Clapham  sect.'  I  have  dropped 
politics  :  for  I  have  no  reason,  no  ground,  no  principle  in  them, 
but  expediency.  When  they  asked  me  this  summer  to  represent 
the  interests  of  the  County  in  parliament,  I  asked  them  how  they 
came  to  make  such  a  mistake  as  to  fancy  that  I  knew  what  was 
their  interest.,  or  any  one  else's  ?  I  am  becoming  more  and  more 
of  an  animal ; — fragmentary,  inconsistent,  seeing  to  the  root  of 
nothing,  unable  to  unite  things  in  my  own  mind.  I  just  do  the 
duty  which  lies  nearest,  and  looks  simplest.  I  try  to  make  the 
boys  grow  up  plucky  and  knowing, — though  what's  the  use  of  it  ? 
They  will  go  to  college  with  even  less  principles  than  I  had,  and 
will  get  into  proportionably  worse  scrapes.  I  expect  to  be  ruined 


PHAETHON.  309 

by  their  debts  before, I  die.  And  for  the  rest,  I  read  nothing  but 
the  Edinburgh  and  the  Agricultural  Gazette.  My  talk  is  of  bul 
locks.  I  just  know  right  from  wrong  enough  to  see  that  the 
farms  are  in  good  order,  pay  my  labourers  living  wages,  keep  the 
old  people  out  of  the  workhouse,  and  see  that  my  cottages  and 
schools  are  all  right ;  for  I  suppose  I  was  put  here  for  some  pur 
pose  of  that  kind, — though  what  it  is,  I  can't  very  clearly  define. 
.  .  .  And  there's  an  end  of  my  long  story." 

"  Not  quite  an  animal  yet,  it  seems  ?  "  said  I  with  a  smile,  half 
to  hide  my  own  sadness  at  a  set  of  experiences  which  are,  alas  ! 
already  far  too  common,  and  will  soon  be  more  common  still. 

"  Nearer  it  than  you  fancy.  I  am  getting  fonder  and  fonder 
of  a  good  dinner  and  a  second  bottle  of  claret ;  about  their  mean 
ing  there  is  no  mistake.  And  my  principal  reason  for  taking  the 
hounds  two  years  ago,  was,  I  do  believe,  to  have  something  to  do 
in  the  winter  which  required  no  thought,  and  to  have  an  excuse 
for  falling  asleep  after  dinner,  instead  of  arguing  with  Jane  a£>out 

her  scurrilous  religious  newspapers There  is  a  great  gulf 

opening,  I  see,  between  me  and  her And  as  I  can't  bridge 

it  over,  I  may  as  well  forget  it.  Pah  !  I  am  boring  you,  and 
over-talking  myself.  Have  a  cigar,  and  let  us  say  no  more  about 
it.  There  is  more  here,  old  fellow,  than  you  will  cure  by  doses 
of  Socratic  Dialectics." 

"  I  am  not  so  sure  of  that,"  I  replied.  u  On  the  contrary,  I 
should  recommend  you  in  your  present  state  of  mind  to  look  out 
your  old  Plato  as  quickly  as  possible,  and  see  if  he  and  his  mas 
ter  Socrates  cannot  give  you,  if  not  altogether  a  solution  for  your 
puzzle,  at  least  a  method  whereby  you  may  solve  it  yourself. 
But  tell  me  first — what  has  all  this  to  do  with  your  evident  sym 
pathy  for  a  man  so  unlike  yourself  as  Professor  Windrush  ?  " 

"  Perhaps  I  feel  for  him  principally  because  he  has  broken 
loose  from  it  all  in  desperation,  just  as  I  have.  But  to  tell  you 
the  truth,  I  have  been  reading  more  than  one  book  of  his  school 
lately  ;  and,  as  I  said,  I  owe  you  no  thanks  for  demolishing  the 
little  comfort  which  I  seemed  to  find  in  them." 

"  And  what  was  that  then  ?  " 

"  Why — in  the  first  place,  you  can't  deny  that  however  inco 
herent  they  may  be,  they  do  say  a  great  many  clever  things,  and 
noble  things  too,  about  man,  and  society,  and  art,  and  nature." 

"  No  doubt  of  it." 

"  And  moreover,  they  seem  to  connect  all  they  say  with — 
with — I  suppose  you  will  laugh  at  me — with  God,  and  spiritual 
truths,  and  eternal  Divine  laws  ;  in  short,  to  consecrate  common 
matters  in  that  very  way,  which  I  could  not  find  in  my  poor 
mother's  teaching." 


310  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

"No  doubt  of  that  either.  And  therein  is  one  real  value  of 
them,  as  protests  in  behalf  of  something  nobler  and  more  un 
selfish  than  the  mere  dollar-getting  spirit  of  their  country." 

"  Well,  then,  can  you  not  see  how  pleasant  it  was  to  me  to 
find  some  one  who  would  give  me  a  peep  into  the  unseen  world, 
without  requiring  as  an  entrance-fee  any  religious  emotions  and 
experiences  ?  Here  I  had  been  for  years,  shut  out ;  told  that  I 
had  no  business  with  any  thing  eternal,  and  pure,  and  noble,  and 
good ;  that  to  all  intents  and  purposes  I  was  nothing  better  than 
a  very  cunning  animal  who  could  be  damned ;  because  I  was  still 
1  carnal,'  and  had  not  been  through  all  Jane's  mysterious  sorrows 
and  joys.  And  it  was  really  good  news  to  me  to  hear  that  they 
were  not  required  after  all,  and  that  all  I  need  do  was  to  be  a 
good  man,  and  leave  devotion  to  those  who  were  inclined  to  it 
by  temperament." 

"  Not  to  be  a  good  man,"  said  I,  "  but  only  a  good  specimen  of 
somg  sort  of  man.  That,  I  think,  would  be  the  outcome  of 
Emerson's  '  Representative  Men,'  or  of  those  most  tragic  '  Me 
moirs  of  Margaret  Fuller  Ossoli.' " 

"  How  then,  hair-splitter  ?     What  is  the  mighty  difference  ?  " 

"  Would  you  call  Dick  Turpin  a  good  man,  because  he  was  a 
good  highwayman  ?  " 

"  What  now  ?  " 

"  That  he  would  be  an  excellent  representative  man  of  his 
class ;  and  therefore,  on  Mr.  Emerson's  grounds,  a  fit  subject  for 
a  laudatory  lecture." 

"  I  hate  reductiones  ad  absurdum.  Let  Turpin  take  care  of 
himself.  I  suppose  I  do  not  belong  to  such  a  very  bad  sort  of 
men,  but  that  it  may  be  worth  my  while  to  become  a  good  speci 
men  of  it  ?  " 

"  Certainly  not ;  only  I  think,  contrary  to  Mr.  Emerson's 
opinion,  that  you  will  not  become  even  that,  unless  you  first 
become  something  better  still,  namely,  a  good  man." 

"  There  you  are  too  refined  for  me.  But  can  you  not  under 
stand,  now,  the  causes  of  my  sympathy  even  with  Windrush  and 
his  *  spirit  of  truth?  ' ' 

"  I  can,  and  those  of  many  more.  It  seems  that  you  thought 
you  found  in  that  school  a  wider  creed  than  the  one  to  which  you 
had  been  accustomed  ?  " 

"  There  was  a  more  comprehensive  view  of  humanity  about 
them,  and  that  pleased  me." 

"  Doubtless,  one  can  be  easily  comprehensive,  if  one  compre 
hends  good  and  bad,  true  and  false,  under  one  category,  by 
denying  the  absolute  existence  of  either  goodness  or  badness, 
truth  or  falsehood.  But  let  the  view  be  as  comprehensive  as  it 


PHAETHON.  311 

will,  I  am  afraid  that  the  creed  founded  thereon  will  not  be  very 
comprehensive." 

"Why  then?" 

"  Because  it  will  comprehend  so  few  people  ;  fewer,  even, 
than  the  sect  of  those  who  will  believe  with  Mr.  Emergon,  that 
Bacon,  like  The  Lord,  is  one  of  the  '  heroes  who  have  become 
bores  at  last '  by  being  too  much  obeyed,  and  that  Harvey  and 
Newton  made  their  discoveries  by  the  'Aristotelian  method.' 
The  sect  of  those  who  believe  that  there  is  no  absolute  right  and 
wrong,  no  absolute  truth  external  to  himself,  discoverable  by  man, 
will,  it  seems  to  me,  be  a  very  narrow  one  to  the  end  of  time  ; 
owing  to  a  certain  primeval  superstition  of  our  race,  who,  even 
in  barbarous  countries,  have  always  been  Platonists  enough  to 
have  some  sort  of  instinct  and  hope  that  there  was  a  right  and  a 
wrong,  and  truths  independent  of  their  own  sentiments  and  facul 
ties.  So  that,  though  this  school  may  enable  you  to  fancy  that 
you  understand  Lady  Jane  somewhat  more,  by  the  simple  ex 
pedient  of  putting  on  her  religious  experiences  an  arbitrary  in 
terpretation  of  your  own,  which  she  would  indignantly  and  justly 
deny,  it  will  enable  her  to  understand  you  all  the  less,  and  widen 
the  gulf  between  you  immeasurably." 

"  You  are  severe." 

"  I  only  wish  you  to  face  one  result  of  a  theory,  which  while 
it  pretends  to  offer  the  most  comprehensive  liberality,  will  be 
found  to  lead  in  practice  to  the  most  narrow  and  sectarian  Epi 
curism  for  a  cultivated  few.  But  for  the  many,  struggling  with 
the  innate  consciousness  of  evil,  in  them  and  around  them, — an 
instinctive  consciousness  which  no  argumentation  about  *  evil 
being  a  lower  form  of  good,'  will  ever  explain  away  to  those  who 
'  grind  among  the  iron  facts  of  life,  and  have  no  time  for  self- 
deception  ' — what  good  news  for  them  is  there  in  Mr.  Emerson's 
cosy  and  tolerant  Epicurism  ?  They  cry  for  deliverance  from 
their  natures;  they  know  that  they  are  not  that  which  they  were  in 
tended  to  be,  because  they  follow  their  natures ;  and  he  answers 
them  with,  '  Follow  your  natures,  and  be  that  which  you  were  in 
tended  to  be.'  You  began  this  argument  by  stipulating  that  I 
should  argue  with  you  simply  as  a  man.  Does  Mr.  Emerson's 
argument  look  like  doing  that,  or  only  arguing  as  with  an  indi 
vidual  of  that  kind  of  man,  or  rather  animal,  to  which  some  iron 
Fate  has  compelled  you  to  belong  ?  " 

"  But,  I  say,  these  books  have  made  me  a  better  man." 

"  I  do  not  doubt  it.  An  earnest  cultivated  man,  speaking  his 
whole  mind  to  an  earnest  cultivated  man,  will  hardly  fail  of 
telling  him  something  he  did  not  know  before.  But  if  you  had 
not  been  a  cultivated  man,  Templeton,  a  man  with  few  sorrows, 


312  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

and  trials,  and  few  unsatisfied  desires — if  you  had  been  the  vil 
lage  shopkeeper,  with  his  bad  debts,  and  his  temptations  to  make 
those  who  can,  pay  for  those  who  cannot, — if  you  had  been  one 
of  your  own  labourers,  environed  with  the  struggle  for  daily  bread, 
and  th%  alehouse,  and  hungry  children,  and  a  sick  wife,  and  a 
dull  taste,  and  a  duller  head, — in  short,  if  you  had  been  a  man 
such  as  nine  out  of  ten  are,*— what  would  his  school  have  taught 
you  then  ?  You  want  some  truths  which  are  common  to  men  as 
men,  which  will  help  and  teach  them,  let  their  temperament  or 
their  circumstances  be  what  they  will — do  you  not  ?  If  you  do 
not,  your  complaint  of  Lady  Jane's  exclusive  creed  is  a  mere 
selfish  competition  on  your  part,  between  a  creed  which  will  fit 
her  peculiarities,  and  a  creed  which  will  fit  your  peculiarities. 
Do  you  not  see  that  ?  " 

"  I  do — go  on." 

"  Then  I  say  you  will  not  find  that  in  Professor  Windrush's 
school.  I  say  you  will  find  it  Lady  Jane's  Creed." 

"  What  ?     In  the  very  creed  which  excludes  me  ?  " 

"  Whether  that  creed  excludes  you  or  not  is  a  question  of  the 
true  meaning  of  its  words.  And  that  again  is  a  question  of  Dia 
lectics.  I  say  it  includes  you  and  all  mankind." 

"  You  must  mistake  her  doctrines,  then." 

"  I  do  not,  I  assure  you.  I  know  what  they  are  ;  and  I  know, 
also,  the  misreading  of  them  to  which  your  dear  mother's  school 
has  accustomed  her,  and  which  has  taught  her  that  these  creeds 
only  belong  to  the  few  who  have  discovered  their  own  share  in 
them.  But  whether  the  creeds  really  do  that  or  not, — whether 
Lady  Jane  does  not  implicitly  confess  that  they  do  not  by  her 
own  words  and  deeds  of  every  day,  that  I  say,  is  a  question  of 
Dialectics,  in  the  Platonic  sense  of  that  word,  as  the  science  which 
discovers  the  true  and  false  in  thought,  by  discovering  the  true 
and  false  concerning  the  meanings  of  words,  which  represent 
thought." 

"  Be  it  so.  I  should  be  glad  to  hold  what  Jane  holds,  for  the 
sake  of  the  marvellous  practical  effect  on  her  character — sweet 
creature  that  she  is ! — which  it  has  produced  in  the  last  seven 
years." 

"  And  which  effect,  I  presume,  was  not  increase  I  by  her 
denying  to  you  any  share  in  the  same  ?  " 

"  Alas,  no !  It  is  only  when  she  falls  on  that — when  she  be 
gins  denouncing  and  excluding — that  all  the  old  faults,  few  and 
light  as  they  are,  seem  to  leap  into  ugly  life  again  for  the 
moment." 

"  Few  and  light,  indeed  !  Ah,  my  dear  Templeton,  the  gulf 
between  you  and  happiness  looks  wide ;  but  only  because  it  is 
magnified  in  mist." 


PHAETHON.  313 

"  Which  you  would  have  me  disperse  by  lightning-flashes  of 
Dialectics,  eh  ?  Well,  every  man  his  nostrum." 

"  I  have  not.     My  method  is  not  my  own,  but  Plato's." 

"  But,  my  good  fellow,  the  Windrush  School  admire  Plato  as 
much  as  you  do,  and  yet  certainly  arrive  at  somewhat  different 
conclusions." 

"  They  do  Plato  the  honour  of  patronizing  him,  as  a  Represen 
tative  Man  ;  but  their  real  text-book,  you  will  find,  is  Proclus. 
That  hapless  Philosophaster's  a  priori  method,  even  his  very 
verbiage,  is  dear  to  their  souls  ;  for  they  copy  it  through  wet  and 
dry,  through  sense  and  nonsense.  But  as  for  Plato, — when  I 
find  them  using  Plato's  weapons,  I  shall  believe  in  their  under 
standing  and  love  of  him." 

"  And  in  the  meanwhile,  claim  him  as  a  new  verger  for  the 
Reformed  Church  Catholic?" 

"Not  a  new  verger,  Templeton.  Augustine  said,  fourteen 
hundred  years  ago,  that  Socrates  was  the  philosopher  of  the 
Catholic  Faith.  If  he  has  not  seemed  so  of  late  years,  it  is,  I 
suspect,  because  we  do  not  understand  quite  the  same  thing  as 
Augustine  did,  when  we  talk  of  the  Catholic  Faith  and  Chris 
tianity." 

"  But  you  forget,  in  your  hurry  of  clerical  confidence,  that  the 
question  still  remains,  whether  these  Creeds  are  true." 

"  That,  too,  as  I  take  it,  is  a  question  of  Dialectics,  unless  you 
choose  to  reduce  the  whole  to  a  balance-of-probabilities-argument, 
— rather  too  narrow  a  basis  for  a  World-faith  to  stand  upon. 
Try  all  'mythic'  theories,  Straussite  and  others,  by  honest  Dia 
lectics.  Try  your  own  thoughts  and  experiences,  and  the  accred 
ited  thoughts  and  experiences  of  wise  men,  by  the  same  method. 
Mesmerism  and  '  The  Development  of  Species '  may  wait  till 
they  have  settled  themselves  somewhat  more  into  sciences  ;  at 
present  it  does  not  much  matter  what  agrees  or  disagrees  with 
them.  But  using  this  weapon  fearlessly  and  honestly,  you  will, 
unless  Socrates  and  Plato  were  fools,  arrive  at  absolute  eternal 
truths,  which  are  equally  true  for  all  men,  good  or  bad,  conscious 
or  unconscious  ;  and  I  tell  you — of  course  you  need  not  believe 
me  till  you  have  made  trial — that  those  truths  will  coincide  with 
the  plain,  honest  meaning  of  the  Catholic  Creeds,  as  determined 
by  the  same  method, — the  only  one,  indeed,  by  which  they  or 
anything  else  can  be  determined." 

"  You  forget  Baconian  induction,  of  which  you  are  so  fond." 

"  And  pray  what  are  Dialectics,  but  strict  Baconian  induction 
applied  to  words,  as  the  phenomena  of  mind,  instead  of  to  things, 
the  phenomena  of " 

"What?" 

14 


314  KINGSLEY'S    MISCELLANIES. 

"  I  can't  tell  you ;  or,  rather,  I  will  not.  I  have  ray  own 
opinion  about  what  those  trees  and  stones  are  ;  but  it  will  require 
a  few  years  more  verification  before  I  tell." 

"  Really,  you  and  your  Dialectics  seem  in  a  hopeful  and  valiant 
state  of  mind." 

"  Why  not  ?     Can  truth  do  any  thing  but  conquer  ?  " 

"  Of  course — assuming,  as  every  one  does,  that  the  truth  is 
with  you." 

"  My  dear  fellow,  I  have  seldom  met  a  man  who  could  not  be 
a  far  better  dialectician  than  I  shall  ever  be,  if  he  would  but  use 
his  Common  Sense." 

"  Common  Sense  ?  That  really  sounds  something  like  a  bathos, 
after  the  great  big  Greek  word  which  you  have  been  propound 
ing  to  me  as  the  cure  for  all  my  doubts." 

"  What  ?  Are  you  about  to  '  gib  '  after  all,  just  as  I  was  flat 
tering  myself  that  I  had  broken  you  in  to  go  quietly  in  harness  ?  " 

"  I  am  very  much  minded  to  do  so.  The  truth  is,  I  cannot 
bring  myself  to  believe  that  the  universal  panacea  lies  in  an  ob 
scure  and  ancient  scientific  method." 

"Obscure  and  ancient?  Did  I  not  just  say  that  any  man 
might  be  a  dialectician  ?  Did  Socrates  ever  appeal  to  any  faculty 
but  the  Common  Sense  of  man  as  man,  which  exists  just  as  much 
in  England  now,  I  presume,  as  it  did  in  Athens  in  his  day  ? 
Does  he  not,  in  pursuance  of  that  method  of  his,  draw  his  argu 
ments  and  illustrations,  to  the  horror  of  the  big-worded  Sophists, 
from  dogs,  kettles,  fish-wives,  and  what  not  which  is  vulgar  and 
common-place  ?  Or  did  I,  in  my  clumsy  attempt  to  imitate  him, 
make  use  of  a  single  argument  which  does  not  lie,  developed  or 
undeveloped,  in  the  Common  Sense  of  every  clown ;  in  that 
human  reason  of  his,  which  is  part  of  God's  image  in  him,  and 
in  every  man  ?  And  has  not  my  complaint  against  Mr.  Wind- 
rush's  school  been,  that  they  will  not  do  this  ;  that  they  will  not 
accept  the  ground  which  is  common  to  men  as  men,  but  disregard 
that  part  of  the  'Vox  Populi '  which  is  truly  '  Vox  Dei,'  for  that 
which  is  '  Vox  Diaboli ' — for  private  sentiments,  fancies,  and 
aspirations  ;  and  so  casting  away  the  common  sense  of  mankind, 
build  up  each  man  on  the  pin's  point  of  his  own  private  judg 
ment,  his  own  inverted  pyramid  ?  " 

"  But  are  you  not  asking  me  to  do  just  the  same,  when  you 
propose  to  me  to  start  as  a  Scientific  Dialectician  ?  " 

"  Why,  what  are  Dialectics,  or  any  other  scientific  method,  but 
conscious  Common  Sense  ?  And  what  is  common  sense,  but 
unconscious  scientific  method?  Every  man  is  a  dialectician,  be 
he  scholar  or  boor,  in  as  far  as  he  tries  to  use  no  words  which  he 
does  not  understand,  and  to  sift  his  own  thoughts,  and  his  expres- 


PHAETHON.  315 

sions  of  them,  by  that  reason  which  is  at  once  common  to  men, 
and  independent  of  them." 

"  As  M.  Jourdain  talked  prose  all  his  life  without  knowing  it. 
Well  ...  I  prefer  the  unconscious  method.  I  have  as  little 
faith  as  Mr.  Carlyle  would  have  in  saying,  '  Go  to,  let  us  make ' 
— an  induction  about  words,  or  any  thing  else.  It  seems  to  me 
no  very  hopeful  method  of  finding  out  facts  as  they  are." 

"  Certainly  ;  provided  you  mean  any  particular  induction,  and 
not  a  general  inductive  and  severely-inquiring  habit  of  mind  ; 
that  very  <  Go  to '  being  a  fair  sign  that  you  have  settled  before 
hand  what  the  induction  shall  be ;  in  plain  English,  that  you 
have  come  to  your  conclusion  already,  and  are  now  looking  about 
for  facts  to  prove  it.  But  is  it  any  wiser  to  say,  '  Go  to,  I  will 
be  conscious  of  being  unconscious  of  being  conscious  of  my  own 
forms  of  thought  ? '  For  that  is  what  you  do  say,  when,  having 
read  Plato,  and  knowing  his  method,  and  its  coincidence  with 
Common  Sense,  you  determine  to  ignore  it  on  common-sense 
questions." 

"  But  why  not  ignore  it,  if  mother-wit  does  as  well  ?  " 

"  Because  you  cannot  ignore  it.  You  have  learnt  it  more  or 
less,  and  cannot  forget  it,  try  as  you  will,  and  must  either  follow 
it,  or  break  it  and  talk  nonsense.  And  moreover,  you  ought  not 
to  ignore  it.  For  it  seems  to  me,  that  you  were  sent  to  Cam 
bridge  by  One  greater  than  your  parents,  in  order  that  you  might 
learn  it,  and  bring  it  home  hither  for  the  use  of  the  M.  Jourdains 
round  you  here,  who  have  no  doubt  been  talking  prose  all  their 
life,  but  may  have  been  also  talking  it  very  badly." 

"  You  speak  riddles." 

"  My  dear  fellow,  may  not  a  man  employ  Reason,  or  any  other 
common  human  faculty,  all  his  life,  and  yet  employ  them  very 
clumsily  and  defectively  ?  " 

"  I  should  say  so,  from  the  gross  amount  of  human  unwisdom." 

u  And  that,  in  the  case  of  uneducated  persons,  happens  because 
they  are  not  conscious  of  those  faculties,  or  of  their  right  laws, 
but  use  them  blindly  and  capriciously,  by  fits  and  starts,  talking 
sense  on  one  point,  and  nonsense  on  another  ?  " 

"  Too  true,  Heaven  knows." 

"  But  the  educated  man,  if  education  mean  any  thing,  is  the 
man  who  has  become  conscious  of  those  common  human  faculties 
and  their  laws,  and  has  learnt  to  use  them  continuously  and  accu 
rately,  on  all  matters  alike." 

"  True,  O  Socraticule  !  " 

"  Then  is  it  not  his  especial  business  to  teach  the  right  use  of 
them  to  the  less  educated  ? — unless  you  agree  with  the  old  So 
phists,  that  the  purpose  of  education  is  to  enable  us  to  deceive  or 
coerce  the  uneducated  for  our  own  aggrandizement." 


316  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

"  I  am  therefore,  it  seems,  to  get  up  Platonic  Dialectics  simply 
in  order  to  teach  my  ploughmen  to  use  their  Common  Sense  ?  " 

"  Exactly  so.  Teach  yourself  first,  and  every  one  around  you 
afterwards,  not  the  doctrines,  nor  the  formulas — though  he  had 
none — but  the  habit  of  mind  which  Socrates  tried  in  vain  to 
teach  the  Athenian  youth.  Teach  them  to  face  all  questions 
patiently  and  fearlessly ;  to  begin  always  by  asking  every  word, 
great  or  small,  from  *  Predestination '  to  '  Protection,'  what  it 
really  means.  Teach  them  that  '  By  your  words  you  shall  be 
justified,  and  by  your  words  you  shall  be  condemned,'  is  no  bar 
ren  pulpit-text,  but  a  tremendous  practical  law  for  every  day, 
and  for  every  matter.  Teach  them  to  be  sure  that  man  can  find 
out  truth,  because  God  his  Father  and  Archetype  will  show  it  to 
those  who  hunger  after  it.  Try  to  make  them  see  clearly  the 
Divine  truths  which  are  implied,  not  only  in  their  creeds,  but  in 
their  simplest  household  words  ;  and " 

"  And  fail  as  Socrates  failed,  or  rather  worse ;  for  he  did  teach 
himself ;  but  I  shall  not  ev-&n  do  that." 

"  Do  not  despair  in  haste.  In  the  first  place,  I  deny  that 
Socrates  taught  himself,  for  I  believe  that  One  taught  him,  who 
has  promised  to  teach  every  man  who  desires  wisdom  ;  and  in 
the  next  place,  I  have  no  fear  but  that  the  sound  practical  intel 
lect  which  That  Same  One  has  bestowed  on  the  Englishman, 
will  give  you  a  far  better  auditory  in  any  harvest  field,  than 
Socrates  could  find  among  the  mercurial  Athenians  of  a  fallen 
age." 

"  Well,  that  is,  at  all  events,  a  comfort  for  poor  me.  I  will 
really  take  to  my  Plato  again,  till  the  hunting  begins." 

"  And  even  then,  you  know,  you  don't  keep  two  packs  ;  so  you 
will  have  three  days  out  of  the  six  wherein  to  study  him." 

"  Four,  you  mean, — for  I  have  long  given  up  reading  Sunday 
books  on  Sunday." 

"  Then  read  your  Bible  and  Prayer-book  ;  or  even  borrow 
some  of  Lady  Jane's  devotional  treatises  ;  and  try,  after  you  have 
translated  the  latter  into  plain  English,  to  make  out  what  they 
one  and  all  really  do  mean,  by  the  light  which  old  Socrates  has 
given  you  during  the  week.  You  will  find  them  wiser  than  you 
fancy,  and  simpler  also." 

"  So  be  it,  my  dear  Soul-doctor.  Here  come  Lewis  and  the 
luncheon." 

And  so  ended  our  conversation. 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.          317 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.* 

FOUR  LECTURES 
DELIVERED  AT  THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  INSTITUTION,  EDINBURGH. 

"  Our  little  systems  have  their  day; 

They  have  their  day  and  cease  to  be; 
They  are  but  broken  lights  of  Thee, 
And  Thou,  0  Lord,  art  more  than  they." 
Tennyson. 

PREFACE. 

I  SHOULD  not  have  presumed  to  choose  for  any  lectures  of 
mine  such  a  subject  as  that  which  I  have  tried  to  treat  here. 
The  subject  was  chosen  for  me  by  the  Institution  where  the 
Lectures  were  delivered.  Still  less  should  I  have  presumed  to 
print  them  of  my  own  accord,  knowing  how  fragmentary  and 
crude  they  are.  They  were  printed  at  the  special  request  of 
my  audience.  Least  of  all,  perhaps,  ought  I  to  have  presumed 
to  publish  them,  as  I  have  done,  at  Cambridge,  where  any  inac 
curacy  or  sciolism  (and  that  such  defects  exist  in  these  pages,  I 
cannot  but  fear)  would  be  instantly  detected,  and  severely  cen 
sured  :  but  nevertheless,  it  seems  to  me  that  Cambridge  was  the 
fittest  place  in  which  they  could  see  the  light,  because  to  Cam 
bridge  I  mainly  owe  what  little  right  method  or  sound  thought 
may  be  found  in  them,  or  indeed,  in  anything  which  I  have  ever 
written.  In  the  hey-day  of  youthful  greediness  and  ambition, 
when  the  mind,  dazzled  by  the  vastness  and  variety  of  the  uni 
verse,  must  needs  know  everything,  or  rather  know  about  every 
thing,  at  once  and  on  the  spot,  too  many  are  apt,  as  I  have  been 
in  past  years,  to  complain  of  Cambridge  studies  as  too  dry  and 
narrow :  but  as  time  teaches  the  student,  year  by  year,  what  is 
really  required  for  an  understanding  of  the  objects  with  which 
*  Originally  published  in  Cambridge,  England. 


318  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

he  meets,  he  begins  to  find  that  his  University,  in  as  far  as  he 
has  really  received  her  teaching"  into  himself,  has  given  him,  in 
her  criticism,  her  mathematics,  above  all,  in  Plato,  something 
which  all  the  popular  knowledge,  the  lectures  and  institutions  of 
the  day,  and  even  good  books  themselves,  cannot  give,  a  boon 
more  precious  than  learning ;  namely,  the  art  of  learning.  That 
instead  of  casting  into  his  lazy  lap  treasures  which  he  would  not 
have  known  how  to  use,  she  has  taught  him  to  mine  for  them 
himself;  and  has  by  her  wise  refusal  to  gratify  his  intellectual 
greediness,  excited  his  hunger,  only  that  he  may  be  the  stronger 
to  hunt  and  till  for  his  own  subsistence  ;  and  thus  the  deeper 
he  drinks,  in  after  years,  at  fountains  wisely  forbidden  to  him 
-  while  he  was  a  Cambridge  student,  and  sees  his  old  companions 
growing  up  into  sound-headed  and  sound-hearted  practical  men, 
liberal  and  expansive,  and  yet  with  a  firm  standing  ground  for 
thought  and  action,  he  learns  to  complain  less  and  less  of  Cam 
bridge  studies,  and  more  and  more  of  that  conceit  and  haste  of 
his  own,  which  kept  him  from  reaping  the  full  advantage  of  her 
training. 

These  Lectures,  as  I  have  said,  are  altogether  crude  and 
fragmentary, — how,  indeed,  could  they  be  otherwise,  dealing 
with  so  vast  a  subject,  and  so  long  a  period  of  time  ?  They  are 
meant  neither  as  Essays  nor  as  Orations,  but  simply  as  a  col 
lection  of  hints  to  those  who  may  wish  to  work  out  the  subject 
for  themselves  ;  and,  I  trust,  as  giving  some  glimpses  of  a  cen 
tral  idea,  in  the  light  of  which  the  spiritual  history  of  Alexandria, 
and  perhaps  of  other  countries  also,  may  be  seen  to  have  in  itself 
a  coherence  and  organic  method. 

I  was  of  course  compelled,  by  the  circumstances  under  which 
these  Lectures  were  delivered,  to  keep  clear  of  all  points  which 
are  commonly  called  "  controversial."  I  cannot  but  feel  that  this 
was  a  gain,  rather  than  a  loss ;  because  it  forced  me,  if  I  wished 
to  give  any  interpretation  at  all  of  Alexandrian  thought,  any 
Theodicy  at  all  of  her  fate,  to  refer  to  laws  which  I  cannot  but 
believe  to  be  deeper,  wider,  more  truly  eternal  than  the  points 
which  cause  most  of  our  modern  controversies,  either  theological 
or  political ;  laws  which  will,  I  cannot  but  believe  also,  reassert 
themselves,  and  have  to  be  reasserted  by  all  wise  teachers,  very 
soon  indeed,  and  it  may  be  under  most  novel  embodiments,  but 
without  any  change  in  their  eternal  spirit. 

For  I  may  say,  I  hope,  now,  (what  if  said  ten  years  ago  would 
have  only  excited  laughter,)  that  I  cannot  but  subscribe  to  the 
opinion  of  the  many  wise  men  who  believe  that  Europe,  and 
England  as  an  integral  part  thereof,  is  on  the  eve  of  a  revolution, 
spiritual,  and  political  as  vast  and  awful  as  that  which  took  place 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.          319 

at  the  Reformation  ;  and  that,  beneficial  as  that  revolution  will 
doubtless  be  to  the  destinies  of  mankind  in  general,  it  depends 
upon  the  wisdom  and  courage  of  each  nation  individually,  whether 
that  great  deluge  shall  issue,  as  the  Reformation  did,  in  a  fresh 
outgrowth  of  European  nobleness  and  strength,  or  usher  in,  after 
pitiable  confusions  and  sorrows,  a  second  Byzantine  age  of  stereo 
typed  effeminacy  and  imbecility.  For  I  have  as  little  sympathy 
with  those  who  prate  so  loudly  of  the  progress  of  the  species, 
and  the  advent  of  I  know-not-what  Cockaigne  of  universal  peace 
and  plenty,  as  I  have  with  those  who  believe,  on  the  strength  of 
"  unfulfilled  prophecy,"  the  downfall  of  Christianity,  and  the  end 
of  the  human  race  to  be  at  hand.  Nevertheless,  one  may  well 
believe  that  prophecy  will  be  fulfilled  in  this  great  crisis,  as  it 
is  in  every  great  crisis,  although  one  be  unable  to  conceive  by 
what  method  of  symbolism  the  drying  up  of  the  Euphrates  can 
be  twisted  to  signify  the  fall  of  Constantinople :  and  one  can  well 
believe  that  a  day  of  judgment  is  at  hand,  in  which  for  every 
nation  and  institution,  the  wheat  will  be  sifted  out  and  gathered 
into  God's  garner,  for  the  use  of  future  generations,  and  the 
chaff  burnt  up  with  that  fire  unquenchable  which  will  try  every 
man's  work,  without  being  of  opinion  that  after  a  few  more  years 
are  over,  the  great  majority  of  the  human  race  will  be  consigned 
hopelessly  to  never-ending  torments. 

If  prophecy  be  indeed  a  divine  message  to  man  ;  if  it  be  any 
thing  but  a  cabbala,  useless  either  to  the  simple-minded  or  to 
the  logical,  intended  only  for  the  plaything  of  a  few  devout 
fancies,  it  must  declare  the  unchangeable  laws  by  which  The 
unchangeable  God  is  governing,  and  has  always  governed,  the 
human  race ;  and  therefore  only  by  understanding  what  has 
happened,  can  we  understand  what  will  happen  ;  only  by  under 
standing  history,  can  we  understand  prophecy ;  and  that  not 
merely  by  picking  out — too  often  arbitrarily  and  unfairly — a 
few  names  and  dates  from  the  records  of  all  the  ages,  but  by 
trying  to  discover  its  organic  laws,  and  the  causes  which  pro 
duce  in  nations,  creeds,  and  systems  health  and  disease,  growth, 
change,  decay,  and  death.  Ifj  in  one  small  corner  of  this  vast 
field,  I  shall  have  thrown  a  single  ray  of  light  upon  these  subjects, 
— if  I  shall  have  done  anything  in  these  pages  towards  illustrat 
ing  the  pathology  of  a  single  people,  I  shall  believe  that  I  have 
done  better  service  to  the  Catholic  Faith  and  the  Scriptures, 
than  if  I  did  really  "  know  the  times  and  the  seasons,  which  the 
Father  has  kept  in  his  own  hand."  For  by  the  former  act  I 
may  have  helped  to  make  some  one  man  more  prudent  and  brave 
to  see  and  to  do  what  God  requires  of  him :  by  the  latter  I  could 
only  add  to  that  paralysis  of  superstitious  fear,  which  is  already 


320  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

but  too  common  among  us,  and  but  too  likely  to  hinder  us  from 
doing  our  duty  manfully  against  our  real  foes,  whether  it  be 
pestilence  at  home  or  tyranny  abroad. 

These  last  words  lead  me  to  another  subject,  on  which  I  am 
bound  to  say  a  few  words.  I  have,  at  the  end  of  these  Lectures, 
made  some  allusion  to  the  present  war.  To  have  entered  fur 
ther  into  political  questions  would  have  been  improper  in  the 
place  where  those  Lectures  were  delivered :  but  I  cannot  refrain 
from  saying  here  something  more  on  this  matter ;  and  that,  first, 
because  all  political  questions  have  their  real  root  in  moral  and 
spiritual  ones,  and  not  (as  too  many  fancy)  in  questions  merely 
relating  to  the  balance  of  power  or  commercial  economy,  and  are 
(the  world  being  under  the  guidance  of  a  spiritual,  and  not  a 
physical  Being;  finally  decided  on  those  spiritual  grounds,  and 
according  to  the  just  laws  of  the  kingdom  of  God  ;  and,  there 
fore,  the  future  political  horoscope  of  the  East  depends  entirely 
on  the  present  spiritual  state  of  its  inhabitants,  and  of  us  who 
have  (and  rightly)  taken  up  their  cause ;  in  short,  on  many  of 
those  questions  on  which  I  have  touched  in  these  Lectures :  and 
next,  because  I  feel  bound,  in  justice  to  myself,  to  guard  against 
any  mistake  "abaut  my  meaning,  or  supposition  that  I  consider 
the  Turkish  empire  a  righteous  thing,  or  one  likely  to  stand 
much  longer  on  the  face  of  God's  earth. 

The  Turkish  empire,  as  it  now  exists,  seems  to  me  an  alto 
gether  unrighteous  and  worthless  thing.  It  stands  no  longer 
upon  the  assertion  of  the  great  truth  of  Islam,  but  on  the  merest 
brute  force  and  oppression.  It  has  long  since  lost  the  only  ex 
cuse  which  one  race  can  have  for  holding  another  in  subjection ; 
that  which  we  have  for  taking  on  ourselves  the  tutelage  of  the 
Hindoos,  and  which  Rome  had  for  its  tutelage  of  the  Syrians 
and  Egyptians  ;  namely,  the  governing  with  tolerable  justice 
those  who  cannot  govern  themselves,  and  making  them  better 
and  more  prosperous  people,  by  compelling  them  to  submit  to 
law.  I  do  not  know  when  this  excuse  is  a  sufficient  one.  God 
showed  that  it  was  so  for  several  centuries  in  the  case  of  the 
Romans  ;  God  will  show  whether  it  is  in  the  case  of  our  Indian 
empire :  but  this  I  say,  that  the  Turkish  empire  has  not  even 
that  excuse  to  plead ;  as  is  proved  by  the  patent  fact  that  the 
whole  East,  the  very  garden  of  the  old  world,  has  become  a 
desert  and  a  ruin  under  the  upas-blight  of  their  government. 

As  for  the  regeneration  of  Turkey,  it  is  a  question  whether 
the  regeneration  of  any  nation  which  has  sunk,  not  into  mere 
valiant  savagery,  but  into  effete  and  profligate  luxury,  is  possible. 
Still  more  is  it  a  question  whether  a  regeneration  can  be  effected, 
not  by  the  rise  of  a  new  spiritual  idea  (as  in  the  case  of  the 


ALEXANDRIA   AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  321 

Koreish),  but  simply  by  more  perfect  material  appliances,  and 
commercial  prudence.  History  gives  no  instance,  it  seems  to 
me,  of  either  case ;  and  if  our  attempt  to  regenerate  Greece  by 
freeing  it  has  been  an  utter  failure,  much  more,  it  seems  to  me, 
would  any  such  attempt  fail  in  the  case  of  the  Turkish  race. 
For  what  can  be  done  with  a  people  which  has  lost  the  one 
great  quality  which  was  the  tenure  of  its  existence,  its  military 
skill  ?  Let  any  one  read  the  accounts  of  the  Turkish  armies  in 
the  fifteenth,  sixteenth,  and  seventeenth  centuries,  when  they 
were  the  tutors  and  models  of  all  Europe  in  the  art  of  war,  and 
then  consider  the  fact  that  those  very  armies  require  now  to  be 
officered  by  foreign  adventurers,  in  order  to  make  them  capable 
of  even  keeping  together,  and  let  him  ask  himself  seriously, 
whether  such  a  fall  can  ever  be  recovered.  When,  in  the  age  of 
Theodosius,  and  again  in  that  of  Justinian,  the  Roman  armies 
had  fallen  into  the  same  state ;  when  the  Italian  legions  required 
to  be  led  by  Stilicho  the  Vandal,  and  the  Byzantine  by  Belisar 
the  Sclav  and  Narses  the  Persian,  the  end  of  all  things  was  at 
hand,  and  came ;  as  it  will  come  soon  to  Turkey. 

But  if  Turkey  deserves  to  fall,  and  must  fall,  it  must  not  fall 
by  our  treachery.  Its  sins  will  surely  be  aven^fed  upon  it :  but 
wrong  must  not  avenge  wrong,  or  the  penalty  is  only  passed 
on  from  one  sinner  to  another.  Whatsoever  element  of  good  is 
left  in  the  Turk,  to  that  we  must  appeal  as  our  only  means,  if 
not  of  saving  him,  still  of  helping  him  to  a  quiet  euthanasia,  and 
_ absorption  into  a  worthier  race  of  successors.  He  is  said  (I 
know  not  how  truly)  to  have  one  virtue  left ;  that  of  faithfulness 
to  his  word.  Only  by  showing  him  that  we  too  abhor  treachery 
and  bad  faith,  can  we  either  do  him  good,  or  take  a  safe  standing- 
ground  in  our  own  peril.  •  And  this  we  have  done  ;  and  for  this 
we  shall  be  rewarded.  But  this  is  surely  not  all  our  duty.  Even 
if  we  should  be  able  to  make  the  civil  and  religious  freedom  of 
the  Eastern  Christians  the  price  of  our  assistance  to  the  Mussul 
man,  the  struggle  will  not  be  over ;  for  Russia  will  still  be  what 
she  has  always  been,  and  the  northern  Anarch  will  be  checked, 
only  to  return  to  the  contest  with  fiercer  lust  of  aggrandizement, 
to  enact  the  part  of  a  new  Macedon,  against  a  new  Greece, 
divided,  not  united,  by  the  treacherous  bond  of  that  balance  of 
power,  which  is  but  war  under  the  guise  of  peace.  Europe 
needs  a  holier  and  more  spiritual,  and  therefore  a  stronger  union, 
than  can  be  given  by  armed  neutralities,  and  the  so-called  cause 
of  order.  She  needs  such  a  bond  as  in  the  Elizabethan  age 
united  the  free  states  of  Europe  against  the  Anarch  of  Spam, 
and  delivered  the  western  nations  from  a  rising  world-tyranny, 
which  promised  to  be  even  more  hideous  than  that  elder  one  of 
14* 


322  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

Rome.  If,  as  then,  England  shall  proclaim  herself  the  champion 
of  freedom  by  acts,  and  not  by  words  and  paper,  she  may,  as 
she  did  then,  defy  the  rulers  of  the  darkness  of  this  world,  for 
the  God  of  Light  will  be  with  her.  But,  as  yet,  it  is  impossible 
to  look  Avithout  sad  forebodings  upon  the  destiny  of  a  war,  begun 
upon  the  express  understanding  that  evil  shall  be  left  triumphant 
throughout  Europe,  wheresoever  that  evil  does  not  seem,  to  our 
own  selfish  shortsightedness,  to  threaten  us  with  immediate  dan 
ger  ;  with  promises,  that  under  the  hollow  name  of  the  Cause  of 
Order — and  that  promise  made  by  a  revolutionary  Anarch — the 
wrongs  of  Italy,  Hungary,  Poland,  Sweden,  shall  remain  unre- 
dressed,  and  that  Prussia  and  Austria,  two  tyrannies,  the  one  far 
more  false  and  hypocritical,  the  other  even  more  rotten  than  that 
of  Turkey,  shall,  if  they  will  but  observe  a  hollow  and  uncertain 
neutrality,  (for  who  can  trust  the  liar  and  the  oppressor  ?) — be 
allowed  not  only  to  keep  their  ill-gotten  spoils,  but  even  now  to 
play  into  the  hands  of  our  foe,  by  guarding  his  Polish  frontier 
for  him,  and  keeping  down  the  victims  of  his  cruelty,  under  pre 
tence  of  keeping  down  those  of  their  own. 

It  is  true,  the  alternative  is  an  awful  one;  one  from  which 
statesmen  and  nations  may  well  shrink:  but  it  is  a  question, 
whether  that  alternative  may  not  be  forced  upon  us  sooner  or 
later,  whether  we  must  not  from  the  first  look  it  boldly  in  the 
face,  as  that  which  must  be  some  day,  and  for  which  we  must 
prepare,  not  cowardly,  and  with  cries  about  God's  wrath  and 
judgments  against  us, — which  would  be  abject,  were  they  not 
expressed  in  such  second-hand  stock-phrases  as  to  make  one" 
altogether  doubt  their  sincerity,  but  chivalrously,  and  with  awful 
joy,  as  a  noble  calling,  an  honour  put  upon  us  by  the  God  of 
Nations,  who  demands  of  us,  as  some  small  return  for  all  his  free 
bounties,  that  we  should  be,  in  this  great  crisis,  the  champions  of 
Freedom  and  of  Justice,  which  are  the  cause  of  God.  At  all 
events,  we  shall  not  escape  our  duty  by  being  afraid  of  it ;  we 
shall  not  escape  our  duty  by  inventing  to  ourselves  some  other 
duty,  and  calling  it  "  Order."  Elizabeth  did  so  at  first.  She 
tried  to  keep  the  peace  with  Spain  ;  she  shrank  from  injuring 
the  cause  of  Order  (then  a  nobler  one  than  now,  because  it  was 
the  cause  of  Loyalty,  and  not  merely  of  Mammon)  by  assisting 
the  Scotch  and  the  Netherlander :  but  her  duty  was  forced  upon 
her  ;  and  she  did  it  at  last,  cheerfully,  boldly,  utterly,  like  a 
hero  ;  she  put  herself  at  the  head  of  the  battle  for  the  freedom 
of  the  world,  and  she  conquered,  for  God  was  with  her ;  and  so 
that  seemingly  most  fearful  of  all  England's  perils,  when  the  real 
meaning  of  it  was  seen,  and  God's  will  in  it  obeyed  manfully, 
became  the  foundation  of  England's  naval  and  colonial  empire, 


ALEXANDKIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  323 

and  laid  the  foundation  of  all  her  future  glories.  So  it  was  then, 
so  it  is  now ;  so  it  will  be  for  ever :  he  who  seeks  to  save  his  life 
will  lose  it :  he  who  willingly  throws  away  his  life  for  the  cause 
of  mankind,  which  is  the  cause  of  God,  the  Father  of  mankind, 
he  shall  save  it,  and  be  rewarded  a  hundred-fold.  That  God 
may  grant  us,  the  children  of  the  Elizabethan  heroes,  all  wisdom 
to  see  our  duty,  and  courage  to  do  it,  even  to  the  death,  should 
be  our  earnest  prayer.  Our  statesmen  have  done  wisely  and 
well  in  refusing,  in  spite  of  hot-headed  clamours,  to  appeal  to 
the  sword  as  long  as  there  was  any  chance  of  a  peaceful  settle 
ment  even  of  a  single  evil.  They  are  doing  wisely  and  well 
now  in  declining  to  throw  away  the  scabbard  as  long  as  there  is 
hope  that  a  determined  front  will  awe  the  offender  into  submis 
sion  :  but  the  day  may  come  when  the  scabbard  must  be  thrown 
away ;  and  God  grant  that  they  may  have  the  courage  to  do  it. 

It  is  reported  that  our  rulers  have  said,  that  English  diplomacy 
can  no  longer  recognize  "  nationalities,"  but  only  existing  "  gov 
ernments."  God  grant  that  they  may  see  in  time  that  the  asser 
tion  of  national  life,  as  a  spiritual  and  indefeasible  existence,  was 
for  centuries  the  central  idea  of  English  policy ;  the  idea  by 
faith  in  which  she  delivered  first  herself,  and  then  the  Protestant 
nations  of  the  Continent,  successively  from  the  yokes  of  Rome, 
of  Spain,  of  France  ;  and  that  they  may  reassert  that  most 
English  of  all  truths  again,  let  the  apparent  cost  be  what  it  may. 

It  is  true,  that  this  end  will  not  be  attained  without  what  is 
called  nowadays  "  a  destruction  of  human  life."  But  we  have 
yet  to  learn  (at  least  if  the  doctrines  which  I  have  tried  to  illus 
trate  in  this  little  book  have  any  truth  in  them,)  whether  shot  or 
shell  has  the  power  of  taking  away  human  life  ;  and  to  believe, 
if  we  believe  our  Bibles,  that  human  life  can  only  be  destroyed 
by  sin,  and  that  all  which  is  lost  in  battle  is  that  animal  life  of 
which  it  is  written,  "  Fear  not  those  who  can  kill  the  body,  and 
after  that  have  no  more  that  they  can  do :  but  I  will  forewarn 
you  whom  you  shall  fear ;  him  who,  after  he  has  killed,  has 
power  to  destroy  both  body  and  soul  in  hell."  Let  a  man  fear 
him,  the  destroying  devil,  and  fear  therefore  cowardice,  dis 
loyalty,  selfishness,  sluggishness,  which  are  his  works,  and  to  be 
utterly  afraid  of  which  is  to  be  truly  brave.  God  grant  that  we 
of  the  clergy  may  remember  this  during  the  coming  war,  and 
instead  of  weakening  the  righteous  courage  and  honour  of  our 
countrymen  by  instilling  into  them  selfish  and  superstitious  fears, 
and  a  theory  of  the  future  state  which  represents  God,  not  as  a 
saviour,  but  a  tormentor,  may  boldly  tell  them  that  "He  is 
not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living;  for  all  live  unto 
him  ; "  and  that  he  who  renders  up  his  animal  life  as  a  worthless 


324  KTNGSLEY'S    MISCELLANIES. 

thing,  in  the  cause  of  duty,  commits  his  real  and  human  life,  his 
very  soul  and  self,  into  the  hands  of  a  just  and  merciful  Father, 
who  has  promised  to  leave  no  good  deed  unrewarded,  and  least 
of  all  that  most  noble  deed,  the  dying  like  a  man  for  the  sake  not 
merely  of  this  land  of  England,  but  of  the  freedom  and  national 
life  of  half  the  world. 


LECTURE   I. 

THE    PTOLEMAIC    ERA. 

BEFORE  I  begin  to  lecture  upon  the  Physical  and  Metaphys 
ical  schools  of  Alexandria,  it  may  be  better,  perhaps,  to  define 
the  meaning  of  those  two  epithets.  Physical,  we  shall  all 
agree,  means  that  which  belongs  to  $vciq  •  natura  ;  nature  ;  that 
which  <£{>mu,  nascitur,  grows,  by  an  organic  life,  and  therefore 
decays  again  ;  which  has  a  beginning,  and  therefore,  I  presume, 
an  end.  And  Metaphysical  means  that  which  we  learn  to  think 
of  after  we  think  of  nature  ;  that  which  is  supernatural,  in  fact, 
having  neither  beginning  nor  end,  imperishable,  immovable, 
and  eternal,  which  does  not  become,  but  always  is.  These,  at 
least,  are  the  wisest  definitions  of  these  two  terms  for  us  just 
now  ;  for  they  are  those  which  were  received  by  the  whole  Alex 
andrian  school,  even  by  those  commentators  who  say  that  Aris 
totle,  the  inventor  of  the  term  Metaphysics,  named  his  treatise 
so  only  on  account  of  its  following  in  philosophic  sequence  his 
book  on  Physics. 

But,  according  to  these  definitions,  the  whole  history  of  Alex 
andria  might  be  to  us,  from  one  point  of  view,  a  physical  school  ; 
for  Alexandria,  its  society  and  its  philosophy,  were  born,  and 
grew,  and  fed,  and  reached  their  vigour,  and  had  their  old  age, 
their  decay,  their  death,  even  as  a  plant  or  an  animal  has  ;  and 
after  they  were  dead  and  dissolved,  the  atoms  of  them  formed 
food  for  new  creations,  entered  into  new  organizations,  just  as 
the  atoms  of  a  dead  plant  or  animal  might  do.  Was  Alexandria 
then,  from  beginning  to  end,  merely  a  natural  and  physical  phe 


nomenon 


It  may  have  been.  And  yet  we  cannot  deny  that  Alexandria 
was  also  a  metaphysical  phenomenon,  vast  and  deep  enough  ; 
seeing  that  it  held  for  some  eighteen  hundred  years  a  population 
of  several  hundred  thousand  souls  ;  each  of  whom,  at  least  accord 
ing  to  the  Alexandrian  philosophy,  stood  in  a  very  intimate  rela- 


ALEXANDRIA   AND   HER  SCHOOLS.  325 

tion  to  those  metaphysic  things  which  are  imperishable  and  im 
movable  and  eternal,  and  indeed,  contained  them  more  or  less, 
each  man,  woman,  and  child  of  them  in  themselves  ;  having  wills, 
reasons,  consciences,  affections,  relations  to  each  other ;  being 
parents,  children,  helpmates,  bound  together  by  laws  concerning 
right  and  wrong,  and  numberless  other  unseen  and  spiritual  rela 
tions. 

Surely  such  a  body  was  not  merely  natural :  any  more  than 
any  other  nation,  society,  or  scientific  school,  made  up  of  men 
and  of  the  spirits,  thoughts,  affections  of  men.  It,  like  them, 
was  surely  spiritual ;  and  could  be  only  living  and  healthy,  in  as 
far  as  it  was  in  harmony  with  certain  spiritual,  unseen,  and  ever- 
lasiing  laws  of  God  ;  perhaps,  as  certain  Alexandrian  philoso 
phers  would  have  held,  in  as  far  as  it  was  a  pattern  of  that  ideal 
constitution  and  polity  after  which  man  was  created,  the  city  of 
God  which  is  eternal  in  the  heavens.  If  so,  may  we  not  sus 
pect  of  this  Alexandria  that  it  was  its  own  fault  if  it  became  a 
merely  physical  phenomenon  ;  and  that  it  stooped  to  become  a 
part  of  nature,  and  took  its  place  among  the  things  which  are 
born  to  die,  only  by  breaking  the  law  which  God  had  appointed 
for  it ;  so  fulfilling,  in  its  own  case,  St.  Paul's  great  words,  that 
death  entered  into  the  world  by  sin,  and  that  sin  is  the  trans 
gression  of  the  law  ? 

Be  that  as  it  may,  there  must  have  been  metaphysic  'enough 
to  be  learnt  in  that,  or  any  city  of  three  hundred  thousand  in 
habitants,  even  though  it  had  never  contained  lecture-room  or 
philosophers  chair,  and  had  never  heard  the  names  of  Aristotle 
and  Plato.  Metaphysic  enough,  indeed,  to  be  learnt  there,  could 
we  but  enter  into  the  heart  of  even  the  most  brutish  negro  slave 
who  ever  was  brought  down  the  Nile  out  of  the  desert  by  Nu 
bian  merchants,  to  build  piers  and  docks  in  whose  commerce  he 
did  not  share,  temples  whose  worship  he  did  not  comprehend, 
libraries  and  theatres  whose  learning  and  civilization  were  to 
him  as  much  a  sealed  book  as  they  were  to  his  countryman,  and 
fellow-slave,  and  only  friend,  the  ape.  There  was  metaphysic 
enough  in  him  truly,  and  things  eternal  and  immutable  :  though 
his  dark-skinned  descendants  were  three  hundred  years  in  dis 
covering  the  fact,  and  proving  it  satisfactorily  to  all  mankind 
for  ever.  You  must  pardon  me  if  I  seem  obscure  ;  I  cannot 
help  looking  at  the  question  with  a  somewhat  Alexandrian  eye, 
and  talking  of  the  poor  negro  dock-worker  as  certain  Alexan 
drian  philosophers  would  have  talked,  of  whom  I  shall  have  to 
speak  hereafter. 

I  should  have  been  glad,  therefore,  had  time  permitted  me, 
instead  of  confining  myself  strictly  to  what  are  now  called  "  the 


32G  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

physic  and  metaphysic  schools  "  of  Alexandria,  to  have  tried  as  well 
as  I  could  to  make  you  understand  how  the  whole  vast  phenom 
enon  grew  up,  and  supported  a  peculiar  life  of  its  own,  for  fifteen 
hundred  years  and  more,  and  was  felt  to  be  the  third,  perhaps  the 
second  city  of  the  known  world,  and  one  so  important  to  the 
great  world-tyrant,  the  Ca3sar  of  Rome,  that  no  Roman  of  dis 
tinction  was  ever  sent  there  as  perfect,  but  the  Alexandrian 
national  vanity  and  pride  of  race  was  allowed  to  the  last  to  pet 
itself  by  having  its  tyrant  chosen  from  its  own  people. 

But,  though  this  cannot  be,  we  may  find  human  elements 
enough  in  the  schools  of  Alexandria,  strictly  so  called,  to  interest 
us  for  a  few  evenings  ;  for  these  schools  were  schools  of  men ;  what 
was  discovered  and  taught  was  discovered  and  taught  by  men,  and 
not  by  thinking-machines  ;  and  whether  they  would  have  been 
inclined  to  confess  it  or  not,  their  own  personal  characters,  likes 
and  dislikes,  hopes  and  fears,  strength  and  weakness,  beliefs  and 
disbeliefs,  determined  their  metaphysics  and  their  physics  for 
them,  quite  enough  to  enable  us  to  feel  for  them  as  men  of  like 
passions  with  ourselves  ;  and  for  that  reason  only,  men  whose 
thoughts  and  speculations  are  worthy  of  a  moment's  attention 
from  us.  For  what  is  really  interesting  to  man,  save  men,  and 
God  the  Father  of  men  ? 

In  the  year  331  B.  c.  one  of  the  greatest  intellects  whose  in 
fluence  the  world  has  ever  felt,  saw,  with  his  eagle  glance,  the 
unrivalled  advantages  of  the  spot  which  is  now  Alexandria  ;  and 
conceived  the  mighty  project  of  making  it  the  point  of  union  of 
two,  or  rather  of  three  worlds.  In  a  new  city,  named  after  him 
self,  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa  were  to  meet  and  to  hold  com 
munion.  A  glance  at  the  map  will  show  you  what  an  b^aho?  y?)f, 
a  centre  of  the  world,  this  Alexandria  is,  and  perhaps  arouse  in 
your  minds,  as  it  has  often  done  in  mine,  the  suspicion  that  it  has 
not  yet  fulfilled  its  whole  destiny,  but  may  become  at  any  time  a 
prize  for  contending  nations,  or  the  centre  of  some  world-wide  em 
pire  to  come.  Communicating  with  Europe  and  the  Levant  by  the 
Mediterranean,  with  India  by  the  Red  Sea,  certain  of  boundless 
supplies  of  food  from  the  desert-guarded  valley  of  the  Nile,  to 
which  it  formed  the  only  key,  thus  keeping  all  Egypt,  as  it  were, 
for  its  own  private  farm,  it  was  weak  only  on  one  side,  that  of 
Judaea.  That  small  strip  of  fertile  mountain  land,  containing  in 
numerable  military  positions  from  which  an  enemy  might  annoy 
Egypt,  being,  in  fact,  one  natural  chain  of  fortresses,  was  the  key 
to  Pho3iiicia  and  Syria.  It  was  an  eagle's  eyrie  by  the  side  of  a 
pen  of  fowls.  It  must  not  be  left  defenceless  for  a  single  year.  Tyre 
and  Gaza  had  been  taken ;  so  no  danger  was  to  be  apprehended 
from  the  seaboard :  but  to  subdue  the  Judrean  mountaineers,  a  race 


ALEXANDRIA   AND  HER   SCHOOLS.  327 

whose  past  sufferings  had  hardened  them  into  a  dogged  fanati 
cism  of  courage  and  endurance,  would  be  a  long  and  sanguinary 
task.  It  was  better  to  make  terms  with  them  ;  to  employ  them 
as  friendly  warders  of  their  own  mountain  walls.  Their  very 
fanaticism  and  isolation  made  them  sure  allies.  There  was  no 
fear  of  their  fraternizing  with  Eastern  invaders.  If  the  country 
was  left  in  their  hands,  they  would  hold  it  against  all  comers. 
Terms  were  made  with  them ;  and,  for  several  centuries,  they 
fulfilled  their  trust. 

This  I  apprehend  to  be  the  explanation  of  that  conciliatory 
policy  of  Alexander's  toward  the  Jews,  which  was  pursued  steadily 
by  the  Ptolemies,  by  Pompey,  and  by  the  Romans,  as  long  as 
these  same  Jews  continued  to  be  endurable  upon  the  face  of  the 
land.  At  least,  we  shall  find  the  history  of  Alexandria  and  that 
of  Judaea  inextricably  united  for  more  than  three  hundred  years. 

So  arose,  at  the  command  of  the  great  conqueror,  a  mighty 
city,  around  those  two  harbours,  of  which  the  western  one  only  is 
now  in  use.  The  Pharos  was  then  an  island.  It  was  connected 
with  the  mainland  by  a  great  mole,  furnished  with  forts  and 
drawbridges.  On  the  ruins  of  that  mole  now  stands  the  greater 
part  of  the  modern  city ;  the  vast  site  of  the  ancient  one  is  a  wil 
derness. 

But  Alexander  was  not  destined  to  carry  out  his  own  magnifi 
cent  project.  That  was  left  for  the  general  whom  he  most 
esteemed,  and  to  whose  personal  prowess  he  had  once  owed  his 
life ;  a  man  than  whom  history  knows  few  greater,  Ptolemy,  the 
son  of  Lagus.  He  was  an  adventurer,  the  son  of  an  adventurer, 
his  mother  a  cast-oif  concubine  of  Philip  of  Macedon.  There 
were  those  who  said  that  he  was  in  reality  a  son  of  Philip 
himself.  However,  he  rose  at  court,  became  a  private  friend  of 
young  Alexander,  and  at  last  his  Somatophylax,  some  sort  of 
Colonel  of  the  Life  Guards.  And  from  thence  he  rose  rapidly, 
till  after  his  great  master's  death  he  found  himself  despot  of 
Egypt. 

His  face,  as  it  appears  on  his  coins,  is  of  the  loftiest  and  most 
Jove-like  type  of  Greek  beauty.  There  is  a  possibility  about  it, 
as  about  most  old  Greek  faces,  of  boundless  cunning ;  a  lofty 
irony  too,  and  a  contemptuousness,  especially  about  the  mouth, 
which  puts  one  in  mind  of  Geothe's  expression :  the  face,  alto 
gether,  of  one  who  knew  men  too  well  to  respect  them.  At 
least,  he  was  a  man  of  clear  enough  vision.  He  saw  what  was 
needed  in  those  strange  times,  and  he  went  straight  to  the  thing 
which  he  saw.  It  was  his  wisdom  which  perceived  that  the  huge 
amorphous  empire  of  Alexander  could  not  be  kept  together,  and 
advised  its  partition  among  the  generals,  taking  care  to  obtain 


328  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

himself  the  lion's  share ;  not  in  size,  indeed,  but  in  capability. 
He  saw,  too,  (what  every  man  does  not  see,)  that  the  only  way 
to  keep  what  he  had  got  was  to  make  it  better,  and  not  worse, 
than  he  found  it.  His  first  Egyptian  act  was  to  put  to  death 
Cleomenes,  Alexander's  lieutenant,  who  had  amassed  vast  treas 
ures  by  extortion  ;  and  who  was,  moreover,  (for  Ptolemy  was  a 
prudent  man,)  a  dangerous  partisan  of  his  great  enemy,  Perdic- 
cas.  We  do  not  read  that  he  refunded  the  treasures :  but  the 
Egyptians  surnamed  him  Soter,  the  Saviour ;  and  on  the  whole 
he  deserved  the  title.  Instead  of  the  wretched  misrule  and  sla 
very  of  the  conquering  Persian  dynasty,  they  had  at  least  law  and 
order,  reviving  commerce,  and  a  system  of  administration,  we  are 
told  (I  confess  to  speaking  here  quite  at  second  hand,)  especially 
adapted  to  the  peculiar  caste-society,  and  the  religious  prejudices 
of  Egypt.  But  Ptolemy's  political  genius  went  beyond  such 
merely  material  and  Warburtonian  care  for  the  conservation  of 
body  and  goods  of  his  subjects.  He  effected  with  complete  suc 
cess  a  feat  which  has  been  attempted,  before  and  since,  by  very 
many  princes,  and  potentates,  but  has  always,  except  in  Ptole 
my's  case  proved  somewhat  of  a  failure,  namely,  the  making  a 
new  deity.  Mythology  in  general  was  in  a  rusty  state.  The 
old  Egyptian  gods  had  grown  in  his  dominions  very  unfashion 
able,  under  the  summary  iconoclasm  to  which  they  had  been  sub 
jected  by  the  Monotheist  Persians, — the  Puritans  of  the  old 
world,  as  they  have  been  well  called.  Indeed,  all  the  dolls — and 
the  treasure  of  the  dolls'  temples  too,  had  been  carried  off  by 
Cambyses  to  Babylon.  And  as  for  the  Greek  gods,  plilosophers 
had  sublimed  them  away  sadly  during  the  last  century  :  not  to 
mention  that  Alexander's  Macedonians,  during  their  wanderings 
over  the  world,  had  probably  become  rather  remiss  in  their 
religious  exercises,  and  had  probably  given  up  mentioning  the 
Unseen  world,  except  for  those  hortatory  purposes  for  which  it 
used  to  be  employed  by  Nelson's  veterans.  But,  as  Ptolemy 
felt,  people  (women  especially)  must  have  something  wherein  to 
believe.  The  "  Religjous  Sentiment"  in  man  must  be  satisfied. 
But,  how  to  do  it  ?  How  to  find  a  deity  who  would  meet  the 
aspirations  of  conquerors  as  well  as  conquered, — of  his  most 
irreligious  Macedonians,  as  well  as  of  his  most  religious  Egyp 
tians  ?  It  was  a  great  problem  :  but  Ptolemy  solved  it.  He 
seems  to  have  taken  the  same  method  which  Brindley  the  En 
gineer  used  in  his  perplexities  :  for  he  went  to  bed.  And  there 
he  had  a  dream : — How  the  foreign  god  Serapis.  of  Pontus, 
(somewhere  near  this  present  hapless  Sinope,)  appeared  to  him, 
and  expressed  his  wish  to  come  to  Alexandria,  and  there  try  his 
influence  on  the  Religious  Sentiment.  So  Serapis  was  sent  for, 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.          329 

and  came, — at  least,  the  idol  of  him,  and,  accommodating  person 
age  ] — he  actually  fitted.  After  he  had  been  there  awhile,  he 
was  found  to  be  quite  an  old  acquaintance — to  be,  in  fact,  the 
Greek  Jove,  and  two  or  three  other  Greek  gods,  and  also  two  or 
three  Egyptian  gods  beside — indeed,  to  be  no  other  than  the  bull 
Apis,  after  his  death  and  deification.  I  can  tell  you  no  more.  I 
never  could  find  that  anything  more  was  known.  You  may  see 
him  among  Greek  and  Roman  statues  as  a  young  man,  with  a 
sort  of  high  basket-shaped  Persian  turban  on  his  head.  But,  at 
least,  he  was  found  so  pleasant  and  accommodating  a  conscience- 
keeper,  that  he  spread,  with  Isis,  his  newly-found  mother,  or  wife, 
over  the  whole  East,  and  even  to  Rome.  The  Consuls  there 
[50  years  B.  c.J  found  the  pair  not  too  respectable,  and  pulled 
down  their  temples.  But,  so  popular  were  they,  in  spite  of  their 
bad  fame,  that  seven  years  after,  the  Triumvirs  had  to  build  the 
temples  up  again  elsewhere  ;  and  from  that  time  forth,  Isis  and 
Serapis,  in  spite,  poor  things,  of  much  persecution,  were  the  fash- 
ionabie  deities  of  the  Roman  world.  Surely  this  Ptolemy  was  a 
man  of  genius ! 

But  Ptolemy  had  even  more  important  work  to  do  than  making 
gods.  He  had  to  make  men ;  for  he  had  few  or  none  ready 
made  among  his  old  veterans  from  Issus  and  Arbela.  He  had 
no  hereditary  aristocracy  :  and  he  wanted  none.  No  aristocracy 
of  wealth  ;  that  might  grow  of  itself,  only  too  fast  for  his  des 
potic  power.  But  as  a  despot,  he  must  have  a  knot  of  men 
round  him  who  would  do  his  work.  And  here  came  out  his  deep 
insight  into  fact.  It  had  not  escaped  that  man,  what  was  the 
secret  of  Greek  supremacy.  How  had  he  come  there  ?  Plow 
had  his  great  master  conquered  half  the  world  ?  How  had  the 
little  semibarbarous  mountain  tribe  up  there  in  Pella,  risen  under 
Philip  to  be  the  master-race  of  the  globe  ?  Plow,  indeed,  had 
Xenophon  and  his  Ten  Thousand,  how  had  the  handfuls  of  Sala- 
mis  and  Marathon,  held  out  triumphantly  century  after  century, 
against  the  vast  weight  of  the  barbarian  ?  The  simple  answer 
was, — Because  the  Greek  has  mind,  the  barbarian  mere  brute 
force.  Because  mind  is  the  lord  of  matter  :  because  the  Greek 
being  the  cultivated  man,  is  the  only  true  man ;  the  rest  are 
pap/3apoi,  mere  things,  clods,  tools  for  the  wise  Greeks'  use,  in  spite 
of  all  their  material  phantom-strength  of  elephants,  and  treasures, 
and  tributaries  by  the  million.  Mind  was  the  secret  of  Greek 
power;  and  for  that  Ptolemy  would  work.  He  would  have  an 
aristocracy  of  intellect ;  he  would  gather  round  him  the  wise  men 
of  the  world  (glad  enough  most  of  them  to  leave  that  miserable 
Greece,  where  every  man's  life  was  in  his  hand  from  hour  to 
hour,)  and  he  would  develop  to  its  highest,  the  conception  of 


330  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

Philip,  when  he  made  Aristotle  the  tutor  of  his  son  Alexander. 
The  consequences  of  that  attempt  were  written  in  letters  of  blood, 
over  half  the  world ;  Ptolemy  would  attempt  it  once  more,  with 
gentler  results.  For  though  he  fought  long,  and  often,  and  well, 
as  Despot  of  Egypt,  no  less  than  as  general  of  Alexander,  he 
was  not  at  heart  a  man  of  blood,  and  made  peace  the  end  of  all 
his  wars. 

So  he  begins.  Aristotle  is  gone :  but  in  Aristotle's  place  Phi- 
letas  the  sweet  singer  of  Cos,  and  Zenodotus  the  grammarian  of 
Ephesus,  shall  educate  his  favourite  son,  and  he  will  have  a  lite 
rary  court,  and  a  literary  age.  Demetrius  Phalereus,  the  Admi 
rable  Crichton  of  his  time,  the  last  of  Attic  orators,  statesman, 
philosopher,  poet,  warrior,  and  each  of  them  in  the  most  graceful, 
insinuating,  courtly  way,  migrates  to  Alexandria,  after  having 
had  the  three  hundred  and  sixty  statues,  which  the  Athenians 
had  too  hastily  erected  to  his  honour,  as  hastily  pulled  down 
again.  Here  was  a  prize  for  Ptolemy  !  The  charming  man 
became  his  bosom  friend  and  fellow,  even  revised  the  laws  of  his 
kingdom,  and  fired  him,  if  report  says  true,  with  a  mighty 
thought — no  less  a  one  than  the  great  public  Library  of  Alex 
andria  ;  the  first  such  institution,  it  is  said,  which  the  world  had 
ever  seen. 

So  a  library  is  begun  by  Soter,  and  organized  and  completed 
by  Philadelphus  ;  or  rather  two  libraries,  for  while  one  part  was 
kept  at  the  Serapeium,  that  vast  temple  on  the  inland  rising 
ground,  of  which,  as  far  as  we  can  discover,  Pompeys  Pillar 
alone  remains,  one  column  out  of  four  hundred,  the  rest  was  in  the 
Brucheion  adjoining  the  Palace  and  the  Museum.  Philadelphus 
buys  Aristotle's  collection  to  add  to  the  stock,  and  Euergetes 
cheats  the  Athenians  out  of  the  original  MSS.  of  .ZEschylus, 
Sophocles,  and  Euripides,  and  adds  largely  to  it  by  more  honest 
methods.  Eumenes,  King  of  Pergamus  in  Asia  Minor,  fired 
with  emulation,  commences  a  similar  collection,  and  is  so  success 
ful,  that  the  reigning  Ptolemy  has  to  cut  off*  his  rival's  supplies 
by  prohibiting  the  exportation  of  papyrus  ;  and  the  Pergamenian 
books  are  henceforth  transcribed  on  parchment,  parchemin,  Per- 
gamene,  which  thus  has  its  name  to  this  day,  from  Pergamus. 
That  collection,  too,  found  its  way  at  last  to  Alexandria.  For 
Anthony  having  become  possessor  of  it  by  right  of  the  stronger, 
gave  it  to  Cleopatra  ;  and  it  remained  at  Alexandria  for  seven 
hundred  years.  But  we  must  not  anticipate  events. 

Then  there  must  be  besides  a  Mouseion,  a  Temple  of  the 
Muses,  with  all  due  appliances,  in  a  vast  building  adjoining  the 
palace  itself,  under  the  very  wing  of  royalty ;  and  it  must  have 


ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  331 

porticoes,  wherein  sages  may  converse  ;  lecture-rooms,  where 
they  may  display  themselves  at  their  will  to  their  rapt  scholars, 
each  like  a  turkey-cock  before  his  brood ;  and  a  large  dining- 
hall,  where  they  may  enjoy  themselves  in  moderation,  as  befits 
sages,  not  without  puns  and  repartees,  epigrams,  anagrams,  and 
Attic  salt,  to  be  fatal,  alas,  to  poor  Diodorus  the  dialectician. 
For  Stilpo,  prince  of  sophists,  having  silenced  him  by  some  quib 
bling  puzzle  of  logic,  Ptolemy  surnamed  him  Chronos,  the  Slow. 
Poor  Diodorus  went  home,  took  pen  and  ink,  wrote  a  treatise  on 
the  awful  nothing,  and  died  in  despair,  leaving  five  "  dialectical 
daughters  "  behind  him,  to  be  thorns  in  the  sides  of  some  five 
hapless  men  of  Macedonia,  as  "  emancipated  women  ; "  a  class 
but  too  common  in  the  later  days  of  Greece,  as  they  will  always 
be,  perhaps,  in  civilizations  which  are  decaying  and  crumbling  to 
pieces,  leaving  their  members  to  seek  in  bewilderment  what  they 
are,  and  what  bonds  connect  them  with  their  fellow-beings.  But 
to  return ;  funds  shall  be  provided  for  the  Museum  from  the 
treasury ;  a  priest  of  rank  appointed  by  royalty,  shall  be  curator  ; 
botanical  and  zoological  gardens  shall  be  attached  ;  collections  of 
wonders  made.  In  all  things  the  presiding  genius  of  Aristotle 
shall  be  worshipped  ;  for  these,  like  Alexander,  were  his  pupils. 
Had  he  not  mapped  out  all  heaven  and  earth,  things  seen  and 
unseen,  with  his  entelechies,  and  energies,  and  dunameis,  and 
put  every  created  and  uncreated  thing  henceforth  into  its  proper 
place,  from  the  ascidians  and  polypes  of  the  sea  to  the  virtues 
and  the  vices, — yea,  to  that  Great  Deity  and  Prime  Cause, 
(which  indeed  was  all  things,)  Noesis  Noeseon,  "  the  Thought 
of  Thoughts,"  whom  he  discovered  by  irrefragable  processes  of 
logic,  and  in  whom  the  philosophers  believe  privately,  leaving 
Serapis  to  the  women  and  the  sailors  ?  All  they  had  to  do  was 
to  follow  in  his  steps  ;  to  take  each  of  them  a  branch  of  science 
or  literature,  or  as  many  branches  as  one  man  conveniently  can  ; 
and  working  them  out  on  the  approved  methods,  end  in  a  few 
years,  as  Alexander  did,  by  weeping  on  the  utmost  shore  of  crea 
tion  that  there  are  no  more  worlds  left  to  conquer. 

Alas  !  the  Muses  are  shy  and  wild  ;  and  though  they  will 
haunt,  like  skylarks,  on  the  bleakest  northern  moor  as  cheerfully 
as  on  the  sunny  hills  of  Greece,  and  rise  thence  singing  into  the 
heaven  of  heavens,  yet  they  are  hard  to  tempt  into  a  gilded  cage, 
however  amusingly  made  and  plentifully  stored  with  comforts. 
Royal  societies,  associations  of  savans,  and  the  like,  are  good  for 
many  things,  but  not  for  the  breeding  of  art  and  genius  :  for  they 
are  things  which  cannot  be  bred.  Such  institutions  are  excellent 
for  physical  science,  when,  as  among  us  now,  physical  science  is 
going  on  the  right  method :  but  where,  as  in  Alexandria,  it  was 


332  KINGSLEY'S    MISCELLANIES. 

going  on  an  utterly  wrong  method,  they  stereotype  the  errors  of 
the  age,  and  invest  them  with  the  prestige  of  authority,  and  pro 
duce  mere  Sorbonnes,  and  schools  of  pedants.  To  literature, 
too,  they  do  some  good,  that  is,  in  a  literary  age, — an  age  of 
reflection  rather  than  of  production,  of  antiquarian  research, 
criticism,  imitation,  when  book-making  has  become  an  easy  and 
respectable  pursuit  for  the  many  who  cannot  dig,  and  are  ashamed 
to  beg.  And  yet,  by  adding  that  same  prestige  of  authority, 
not  to  mention  of  good  society  and  Court  favour,  to  the  popular 
mania  for  literature,  they  help  on  the  growing  evil,  and  increase 
the  multitude  of  prophets  who  prophesy  out  of  their  own  heart 
and  have  seen  nothing. 

And  this  was,  it  must  be  said,  the  outcome  of  all  the  Ptolemaean 
appliances. 

In  Physics  they  did  little.  In  Art  nothing.  In  Metaphysics 
less  than  nothing. 

We  will  first  examine,  as  the  more  pleasant  spectacle  of  the 
two,  that  branch  of  thought  in  which  some  progress  was  really 
made,  and  in  which  the  Ptolemaic  schools  helped  forward  the 
development  of  men  who  have  become  world-famous,  and  will 
remain  so,  I  suppose,  until  the  end  of  time. 

Four  names  at  once  attract  us  :  Euclid,  Aristarchus,  Eratos 
thenes,  Hipparchus.  Archimedes,  also,  should  be  included  in 
the  list,  for  he  was  a  pupil  of  the  Alexandrian  school,  having 
studied  (if  Proclus  is  to  be  trusted)  in  Egypt,  under  Conon  the 
Samian,  during  the  reigns  of  two  Ptolemies,  Philadelphus  and 
Euergetes. 

Of  Euclid,  as  the  founder  (according  to  Proclus)  of  the  Alex 
andrian  Mathematical  school,  I  must  of  course  speak  first.  Those 
who  wish  to  attain  to  a  juster  conception  of  the  man  and  his  work 
than  they  can  do  from  any  other  source,  will  do  well  to  read  Pro 
fessor  De  Morgan's  admirable  article  on  him  in  Smith's  Classical 
Dictionary ;  which  includes,  also,  a  valuable  little  sketch  of  the 
rise  of  Geometric  science,  from  Pythagoras  and  Plato,  of  whose 
school  Euclid  was,  to  the  great  master  himself. 

I  shall  confine  myself  to  one  observation  on  Euclid's  genius, 
and  on  the  immense  influence  which  it  exerted  on  after  genera 
tions.  It  seems  to  me,  speaking  under  correction,  that  it  exerted 
this,  because  it  was  so  complete  a  type  of  the  general  tendency 
of  the  Greek  mind,  deductive,  rather  than  inductive  ;  of  unrivalled 
subtlety  in  obtaining  results  from  principles,  and  results  again 
from  them,  ad  infinitum  :  deficient  in  that  sturdy  moral  patience 
which  is  required  for  the  examination  of  facts,  and  which  has 
made  Britain  at  once  a  land  of  practical  craftsmen,  and  of  earn 
est  scientific  discoverers. 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.          333 

Volatile,  restless,  "  always  children  longing  for  something  new," 
as  the  Egyptian  priest  said  of  them,  they  were  too  ready  to  be 
lieve  that  they  had  attained  laws,  and  then  tired  with  their  toy, 
throw  away  those  hastily  assumed  laws,  and  wander  off  in  search 
of  others.  Gifted,  beyond  all  the  sons  of  men,  with  the  most 
exquisite  perception  of  form,  both  physical  and  metaphysical, 
they  could  become  geometers  and  logicians,  as  they  became  sculp 
tors  and  artists  ;  beyond  that  they  could  hardly  rise.  They  were 
conscious  of  their  power  to  build  ;  and  it  made  them  ashamed  to 
dig. 

Four  men  only  among  them  seem,  as  far  as  I  can  judge,  to 
have  had  a  great  inductive  power.  Socrates  and  Plato  in  Meta 
physics  ;  Archimedes  and  Hipparchus  in  Physics.  But  these 
men  ran  so  far  counter  to  the  national  genius,  that  their  exam 
ples  were  not  followed.  As  you  will  hear  presently,  the  discov 
eries  of  Archimedes  and  Hipparchus  were  allowed  to  remain 
where  they  were  for  centuries.  The  Dialectic  of  Plato  and 
Socrates  was  degraded  into  a  mere  art  for  making  any  thing 
appear  alternately  true  and  false,  and  among  the  Megaric  school, 
for  undermining  the  ground  of  all  science,  and  paving  the  way 
for  skepticism,  by  denying  the  natural  world  to  be  the  object 
of  certain  knowledge.  The  only  element  of  Plato's  thought 
to  which  they  clung  was,  as  we  shall  find  from  the  Neoplaton- 
ists,  his  physical  speculations  ;  in  which,  deserting  his  inductive 
method,  he  has  fallen  below  himself  into  the  popular  cacoethes, 
and  Pythagorean  deductive  dreams  about  the  mysterious  powers 
of  number,  and  of  the  regular  solids. 

Such  a  people,  when  they  took  to  studying  physical  science, 
would  be,  and  in  fact  were,  incapable  of  Chemistry,  Geognosy, 
Comparative  Anatomy,  or  any  of  that  noble  choir  of  sister 
sciences,  which  are  now  building  up  the  material  as  well  as  the 
intellectual  glory  of  Britain. 

To  Astronomy,  on  the  other  hand,  the  pupils  of  Euclid  turned 
naturally,  as  to  the  science  which  required  the  greatest  amount 
of  their  favourite  geometry :  but  even  that  they  were  content  to 
let  pass  from  its  inductive  to  its  deductive  stage, — not  as  we  have 
done  now,  after  two  centuries  of  inductive  search  for  the  true 
laws,  and  their  final  discovery  by  Kepler  and  Newton :  but  as 
soon  as  Hipparchus  had  propounded  any  theory  which  would  do 
instead  of  the  true  laws,  content  there  to  stop  their  experiments, 
and  return  to  their  favourite  work  of  commenting,  deducing, 
spinning  notion  out  of  notion,  ad  infinitum. 

Still,  they  were  not  all  of  this  temper.  Had  they  been,  they 
would  have  discovered,  not  merely  a  little,  but  absolutely  noth 
ing.  For  after  all,  if  we  will  consider,  induction  being  the  right 


334  KINGSLKY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

path  to  knowledge,  every  man,  whether  he  knows  it  or  not,  uses 
induction,  more  or  less,  by  the  mere  fact  of  his  having  a  human 
reason,  and  knowing  any  thing  at  all ;  as  M.  Jourdain  talked 
prose  all  his  life  without  being  aware  of  it. 

Aristarchus  is  principally  famous  for  his  attempt  to  discover 
the  distance  of  the  sun  as  compared  with  that  of  the  moon.  His 
method  was  ingenious  enough,  but  too  rough  for  success,  as  it 
depended  principally  on  the  belief  that  the  line  bounding  the 
bright  part  of  the  moon  was  an  exact  straight  line.  The  result 
was  of  course  erroneous.  He  concluded  that  the  sun  was  eigh 
teen  times  as  far  as  the  moon,  and  not,  as  we  now  know,  four 
hundred  ;  but  his  conclusion,  like  his  conception  of  the  vast  ex 
tent  of  the  sphere  of  the  fixed  stars,  was  far  enough  in  advance 
of  the  popular  doctrine  to  subject  him,  according  to  Plutarch,  to 
a  charge  of  impiety. 

Eratosthenes,  again,  contributed  his  mite  to  the  treasure  of 
human  science, — his  one  mite ;  and  yet  by  that  he  is  better 
known  than  by  all  the  volumes  which  he  seems  to  have  poured 
out,  on  Ethics,  Chronology,  Criticism  on  the  old  Attic  Comedy, 
and  what  not,  spun  out  of  his  weary  brain  during  a  long  life  of 
research  and  meditation.  They  have  all  perished, — like  ninety- 
nine  hundredths  of  the  labours  of  that  great  literary  age ;  and 
perhaps  the  world  is  no  poorer  for  the  loss.  But  one  thing, 
which  he  attempted  on  a  sound  and  practical  philosophic  method, 
stands,  and  will  stand  for  ever.  And  after  all,  is  not  that  enough 
to  have  lived  for  ?  to  have  found  out  one  true  thing,  and,  there 
fore,  one  imperishable  thing,  in  one's  life.  If  each  one  of  us 
could  but  say  when  he  died,  "  This  one  thing  I  have  found  out ; 
this  one  thing  I  have  proved  to  be  possible  ;  this  xme  eternal 
fact  I  have  rescued  from  Hela,  the  realm  of  the  formless  and 
unknown."  How  rich  one  such  generation  might  make  the  world 
for  ever ! 

But  such  is  not  the  appointed  method.  The  finders  are  few 
and  far  between :  because  the  true  seekers  are  few  and  far  be 
tween  ;  and  a  whole  generation  has  often  nothing  to  show  for  its 
existence  but  one  solitary  gem,  which  some  one  man, — often 
unnoticed  in  his  time, — has  picked  up  for  them,  and  so  given 
them  "  a  local  habitation  and  a  name." 

Eratosthenes  had  heard  that  in  Syene,  in  Upper  Egypt,  deep 
wells  were  enlightened  to  the  bottom  on  the  day  of  the  summer 
solstice,  and  that  vertical  objects  cast  no  shadows. 

He  had  before  suggested,  as  is  supposed,  to  Ptolemy  Euer- 
getes,  to  make  him  the  two  great  copper  armillas,  or  circles  for 
determining  the  equinox,  which  stood  for  centuries  in  "  that 
which  is  called  the  Square  Porch," — probably  somewhere  in  the 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.          335 

Museum.  By  these  he  had  calculated  the  obliquity  of  the 
ecliptic,  closely  enough  to  serve  for  a  thousand  years  after.  That 
was  one  work  done.  But  what  had  the  Syene  shadows  to  do 
with  that  ?  Syene  must  be  under  that  ecliptic.  On  the  edge  of 
it.  In  short,  just  under  the  tropic.  Now  he  had  ascertained 
exactly  the  latitude  of  one  place  on  the  earth's  surface.  He  had 
his  known  point  from  whence  to  start  on  a  world-journey,  and  he 
would  use  it ;  he  would  calculate  the  circumference  of  the  earth, 
— and  he  did  it.  By  observations  made  at  Alexandria,  he  ascer 
tained  its  latitude  compared  with  that  of  Syene  ;  and  so  ascer 
tained  what  proportion  to  the  whole  circumference  was  borne  by 
the  five  thousand  stadia  between  Alexandria  and  Syene.  He 
fell  into  an  error,  by  supposing  Alexandria  and  Syene  to  be 
under  the  same  meridians  of  longitude  :  but  that  did  not  prevent 
his  arriving  at  a  fair  rough  result  of  two  hundred  and  fifty-two 
thousand  stadia, — thirty-one  thousand  five  hundred  Roman  miles ; 
considerably  too  much  ;  but  still,  before  him,  I  suppose,  none 
knew  whether  it  was  ten  thousand  or  ten  millions.  The  right 
method  having  once  been  found,  nothing  remained  but  to  employ 
it  more  accurately. 

One  other  great  merit  of  Eratosthenes  is,  that  he  first  raised 
Geography  to  the  rank  of  a  science.  His  Geographica  were  an 
organic  collection,  the  first  the  world  had  ever  seen,  of  all  the 
travels  and  books  of  earth-description  heaped  together  in  the 
Great  Library,  of  which  he  was  for  many  years  the  keeper.  He 
began  with  a  geognostic  book,  touched  on  the  traces  of  Cataclysms 
and  Change,  visible  on  the  earth's  surface  ;  followed  by  two 
books,  one  a  mathematic  book,  the  other  on  political  geography, 

and  completed  by  a  map — which  one  would  like  to  see  :  but 

not  a  trace  of  all  remains,  but  a  few  quoted  fragments — 

"  We  are  such  stuff 
As  dreams  are  made  of." 

But  if  Eratosthenes  had  hold  of  eternal  fact  and  law  on  one 
point,  there  was  a  contemporary  who  had  hold  of  it  in  more  than 
one.  I  mean  Archimedes ;  of  whom,  as  I  have  said,  we  must 
speak  as  of  an  Alexandrian.  It  was  as  a  mechanician,  rather 
than  as  an  astronomer,  that  he  gained  his  reputation.  The 
stories  of  his  Hydraulic  Screw,  the  Great  Ship  which  he  built 
for  Hiero,  and  launched  by  means  of  machinery,  his  crane,  his 
war-engines,  above  all  his  somewhat  mythical  arrangement  of 
mirrors,  by  which  he  set  fire  to  ships  in  the  harbour — all  these, 
like  the  story  of  his  detecting  the  alloy  in  Hiero's  crown,  while 
he  himself  was  in  the  bath,  and  running  home  undressed  shout 
ing  ripqica — all  these  are  schoolboy's  tales.  To  the  thoughtful 


336  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

person  it  is  the  method  of  the  man  which  constitutes  his  real 
greatness,  that  power  of  insight  by  which  he  solved  the  two 
great  problems  of  the  nature  of  the  lever  and  of  hydrostatic 
pressure,  which  form  the  basis  of  all  static  and  hydrostatic 
science  to  this  day.  And  yet  on  that  very  question  of  the  lever 
the  great  mind  of  Aristotle  babbles — neither  sees  the  thing  itself, 
nor  the  way  towards  seeing  it.  And  since  Archimedes  spoke, 
the  thing  seems  self-evident  to  every  schoolboy.  There  is  some 
thing  to  me  very  solemn  in  such  a  fact  as  this.  It  brings  us 
down  to  some  of  the  very  deepest  questions  of  metaphysic.  This 
mental  insight  of  which  we  boast  so  much,  what  is  it  ?  Is  it 
altogether  a  process  of  our  own  brain  and  will  ?  If  it  be,  why 
have  so  few  the  power,  even  among  men  of  power,  and  they  so 
seldom  ?  If  brain  alone  were  what  was  wanted,  what  could  not 
Aristotle  have  discovered?  Or  is  it  that  no  man  can  see  a  thing 
unless  God  shows  it  him  ?  Is  it  that  in  each  separate  act  of  in 
duction,  that  mysterious  and  transcendental  process  which  can 
not,  let  logicians  try  as  they  will,  be  expressed  by  any  merely 
logical  formula,  Aristotelian  or  other — is  it,  I  say,  that  in  each 
separate  act  of  induction  we  do  not  find  the  law,  but  the  law  is 
shown  to  us,  by  Him  who  made  the  law  ?  Bacon  thought  so. 
Of  that  you  may  find  clear  proof  in  his  writings.  May  not  Ba- 
can  be  right  ?  May  it  not  be  true  that  God  does  in  science,  as 
well  as  in  ethics,  hide  things  from  the  wise  and  prudent,  from 
the  proud,  complete,  self-contained  systematize!*  like  Aristotle, 
who  must  needs  explain  all  things  in  heaven  and  earth  by  his 
own  formulae,  and  his  entelechies  and  energies,  and  the  rest  of 
the  notions  which  he  has  made  for  himself  out  of  his  own  brain, 
and  then  pack  each  thing  away  in  its  proper  niche  in  his  great 
cloud-universe  of  conceptions  ?  Is  it  that  God  hides  things  from 
such  men  many  a  time,  and  reveals  them  to  babes,  t<*  gentle, 
affectionate,  simple-hearted  men,  such  as  we  know  Archimedes 
to  have  been,  who  do  not  try  to  give  an  explanation  for  a  fact, 
but  feel  how  awful  and  divine  it  is,  and  wrestle  reverently  and 
steadfastly  with  it,  as  Jacob  with  the  Angel,  and  will  not  let  it 
go,  until  it  bless  them  ?  Sure  I  am,  from  what  I  have  seen  of 
scientific  men,  that  there  is  an  intimate  connection  between  the 
health  of  the  moral  faculties  and  the  health  of  the  inductive 
ones  ;  and  that  the  proud,  self-conceited,  and  passionate  man 
will  see  nothing :  perhaps  because  nothing  will  be  shown  him. 

But  we  must  leave  Archimedes  for  a  man  not  perhaps  so  well 
known,  but  to  whom  we  owe  as  much  as  to  the  great  Syracu- 
san  ; — Hipparchus  the  astronomer.  To  his  case  much  which  I 
have  just  said  applies.  In  him  astronomic  science  seemed  to 
awaken  suddenly  to  a  true  inductive  method,  and  after  him  to 


ALEXANDRIA   AND   HER  SCHOOLS.  337 

fall  into  its  old  slumber  for  three  hundred  years.  In  the  mean 
time  Timocharis,  Aristyllus,  and  Conon  had  each  added  their 
mites  to  the  discoveries  of  Eratosthenes  :  but  to  Hipparchus  we 
owe  that  theory  of  the  heavens,  commonly  called  the  Ptolemaic 
system,  which  starting  from  the  assumption  that  the  earth  was 
the  centre  of  the  universe,  attempted  to  explain  the  motions  of 
the  heavenly  bodies  by  a  complex  system  of  supposed  eccentrics 
and  epicyles.  This  has  of  course  now  vanished  before  modern 
discoveries.  But  its  value  as  a  scientific  attempt  lies  in  this  : 
that  the  method  being  a  correct  one,  correct  results  were  ob 
tained,  though  starting  from  a  false  assumption ;  and  Hipparchus 
and  his  successors  were  enabled  by  it  to  calculate  and  predict  the 
changes  of  the  heavens,  in  spite  of  their  clumsy  instruments, 
with  almost  as  much  accuracy  as  we  do  now. 

For  the  purpose  of  working  out  this  theory  he  required  a 
science  of  trigonometry,  plane  and  spherical :  and  this  he  ac 
cordingly  seems  to  have  invented.  To  him  also  we  owe  the  dis 
covery  of  that  vast  gradual  change  in  the  position  of  the  fixed 
stars,  in  fact,  of  the  whole  celestial  system,  now  known  by  the 
name  of  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes  ;  the  first  great  catalogue 
of  fixed  stars,  to  the  number  of  1080 ;  attempts  to  ascertain 
whether  the  length  of  years  and  days  were  constant ;  with  which, 
with  his  characteristic  love  of  truth,  he  seems  to  have  been  hardly 
satisfied.  Pie  too  invented  the  planisphere,  or  mode  of  repre 
senting  the  starry  heavens  upon  a  plane,  and  is  the  father  of  true 
geography,  having  formed  the  happy  notion  of  mapping  out 
the  earth,  as  well  as  the  heavens,  by  degrees  of  latitude  and 
longitude. 

Strange  it  is,  and  somewhat  sad,  that  we  should  know  noth 
ing  of  this  great  man,  should  be  hardly  able  to  distinguish  him 
from  others  of  the  same  name,  but  through  the  works  of  a  com 
mentator,  who  wrote  and  observed  in  Alexandria  300  years  after, 
during  the  age  of  the  Autonincs.  I  mean,  of  course,  the  famous 
Ptolemy,  whose  name  so  long  bore  the  honour  of  that  system 
which  really  belonged  to  Hipparchus. 

This  single  fact  speaks  volumes  for  4he  real  weakness  of  the 
great  artificial  school  of  literature  and  science  founded  by  the 
kings  of  Egypt.  From  the  father  of  Astronomy,  as  Delambre 
calls  him,  to  Ptolemy,  the  first  man  who  seems  really  to  have 
appreciated  him,  we  have  not  a  discovery,  hardly  an  observation 
or  a  name  to  fill  the  gap.  Physical  sages  there  were  ;  but  they  were 
geometers  and  mathematicians,  rather  than  astronomic  observers 
and  inquirers.  And  in  spite  of  all  the  huge  appliances  and  ad 
vantages  of  that  great  Museum,  its  inhabitants  were  content,  in 
physical  science,  as  in  all  other  branches  of  thought,  to  comment, 

15 


338  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

to  expound,  to  do  every  thing  but  open  their  eyes  and  observe 
facts,  and  learn  from  them,  as  the  predecessors  whom  they  pre 
tended  to  honour  had  done.  But  so  it  is  always.  A  genius, 
an  original  man  appears.  He  puts  himself  boldly  in  contact 
with  facts,  asks  them  what  they  mean,  and  writes  down  their 
answer  for  the  world's  use.  And  then  his  disciples  must  needs 
form  a  school,  and  a  system  ;  and  fancy  that  they  do  honour 
to  their  master,  by  refusing  to  follow  in  his  steps  ;  by  making 
his  book  a  fixed  dogmatic  canon ;  attaching  to  it  some  magical 
infallibility  ;  declaring  the  very  lie  which  he  disproved  by  his 
whole  existence,  that  discovery  is  henceforth  impossible,  and  the 
sum  of  knowledge  complete :  instead  of  going  on  to  discover  as 
he  discovered  before  them,  and  by  following  his  method,  show 
that  they  honour  him,  not  in  the  letter,  but  in  spirit  and  in 
truth. 

For  this,  if  you  will  consider,  is  the  true  meaning  of  that  great 
command,  "  Honour  thy  father  and  mother,  that  thy  days  may 
be  long  in  the  land."  On  reverence  for  the  authority  of  by-gone 
generations,  depends  the  permanence  of  every  form  of  thought  or 
belief,  as  much  as  of  all  social,  national,  and  family  life  :  but  on 
reverence  of  the  spirit,  not  merely  of  the  letter ;  of  the  methods 
of  our  ancestors,  not  merely  of  their  conclusions.  Ay,  and  we 
shall  not  be  able  to  preserve  their  conclusions,  not  even  to  un 
derstand  them ;  they  will  die  away  on  our  lips  into  skeleton 
notions,  and  soulless  phrases,  unless  we  see  that  the  greatness  of 
the  mighty  dead  has  always  consisted  in  this,  that  they  were 
seekers,  improvers,  inventors,  endued  with  that  divine  power  and 
right  of  discovery  which  has  been  bestowed  on  us,  even  as  on 
them ;  unless  we  become  such  men  as  they  were,  and  go  on  to 
cultivate  and  develop  the  precious  heritage  which  they  have  be 
queathed  to  us,  instead  of  hiding  their  talent  in  a  napkin  and 
burying  it  in  the  earth ;  making  their  greatness  an  excuse  for 
our  own  littleness,  their  industry  for  our  laziness,  their  faith  for 
our  despair;  and  prating  about  the  old  paths,  while  we  forget 
that  paths  were  made  that  men  might  walk  in  them,  and  not 
stand  still,  and  try  in  vain  to  stop  the  way. 

It  may  be  said  certainly,  as  an  excuse  for  these  Alexandrian 
Greeks,  that  they  were  a  people  in  a  state  of  old  age  and  decay ; 
and  that  they  only  exhibited  the  common  and  natural  faults  of 
old  age.  For  as  with  individuals,  so  with  races,  nations,  societies, 
schools  of  thought ;  youth  is  the  time  of  free  fancy  and  poetry ; 
manhood  of  calm  and  strong  induction  :  old  age  of  deduction, 
when  men  settle  down  upon  their  lees,  and  content  themselves 
with  reaffirming  and  verifying  the  conclusions  of  their  earlier 
years,  and  too  often,  alas !  with  denying  and  anathematizing  all 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.          339 

conclusions  which  have  been  arrived  at  since  their  own  meridian. 
It  is  sad  :  but  it  is  patent  and  common.  It  is  sad  to  think  that 
the  day  may  come  to  each  of  us,  when  we  shall  have  ceased  to 
hope  for  discovery  and  for  progress  ;  when  a  thing  will  seem  a 
priori  false  to  us,  simply  because  it  is  new  ;  and  we  shall  be 
saying  querulously  to  the  Divine  Light  which  lightens  every 
man  who  comes  into  the  world,  "  Hitherto  shalt  thou  come,  and 
no  further.  Thou  hast  taught  men  enough  ;  yea,  rather,  thou 
hast  exhausted  thine  own  infinitude,  and  hast  no  more  to  teach 
them." — Surely  such  a  temper  is  to  be  fought  against,  prayed 
against,  both  in  ourselves,  and  in  the  generation  in  which  we 
live.  Surely  there  is  no  reason  why  such  a  temper  should  over 
take  old  age.  There  may  be  reason  enough,  "  in  the  nature  of 
things."  For  that  which  is  of  nature  is  born  only  to  decay  and 
die.  But  in  man  there  is  more  than  dying  nature  ;  there  is 
spirit,  and  a  capability  of  spiritual  and  everlasting  life,  which 
renews  its  youth  like  the  eagle's,  and  goes  on  from  strength  to 
strength,  and  which  if  it  have  its  autumns  and  its  winters,  has  no 
less  its  ever-recurring  springs  and  summers ;  if  it  has  its  Sab 
baths,  finds  in  them  only  rest  and  refreshment  for  coming  labour. 
And  why  not  in  nations,  societies,  scientific  schools  ?  These  too 
are  not  merely  natural :  they  are  spiritual,  and  are  only  living 
and  healthy  in  as  far  as  they  are  in  harmony  with  spiritual,  un 
seen,  and  everlasting  laws  of  God.  May  not  they,  too,  have  a 
capability  of  everlasting  life,  as  long  as  they  obey  those,  laws  in 
faith,  and  patience,  and  humility  ?  We  cannot  deny  the  analogy 
between  the  individual  man,  and  these  societies  of  men.  We 
cannot,  at  least,  deny  the  analogy  between  them  in  growth,  decay, 
and  death.  May  we  not  have  hope  that  it  holds  good  also  for 
that  which  can  never  die;  and  that  if  they  do  die,  as  this  old  Greek 
society  did,  it  is  by  no  brute  natural  necessity,  but  by  their  own  un 
faithfulness  to  that  which  they  knew,  to  that  which  they  ought  to 
have  known  ?  It  is  always  more  hopeful,  always,  as  I  think,  more 
philosophic,  to  throw  the  blame  of  failure  on  man,  on  ourselves, 
rather  than  on  God,  and  the  perfect  law  of  his  universe.  At  least 
let  us  be  sure  for  ourselves,  that  such  an  old  age  as  befell  this 
Greek  society,  as  befalls  many  a  man  nowadays,  need  not  be  our 
lot.  Let  us  be  sure  that  earth  shows  no  fairer  sight  than  the  old 
man,  whose  worn-out  brain  and  nerves  make  it  painful,  and  per 
haps  impossible  to  produce  fresh  thought  himself:  but  who  can 
yet  welcome  smilingly  and  joyfully  the  fresh. thoughts  of  others  ; 
who  keeps  unwearied  his  faith  in  God's  government  of  the  uni 
verse,  in  God's  continual  education  of  the  human  race;  who 
draws  around  him  the  young  and  the  sanguine,  not  merely  to 
check  their  rashness  by  his  wise  •  cautions,  but  to  inspirit  their 


340  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

sloth  by  the  memories  of  his  own  past  victories  ;  who  hands  over, 
without  envy  or  repining,  the  lamp  of  truth  to  younger  runners 
than  himself,  and  sits  contented  by,  bidding  the  new  generation 
God  speed  along  the  paths  untrodden  by  him,  but  seen  afar  off 
by  faith.  A  few  such  old  persons  have  I  seen,  both  men  and 
women  ;  in  whom  the  young  heart  beat  pure  and  fresh,  beneath 
the  cautious  and  practised  brain  of  age,  and  gray  hairs  which 
were  indeed  a  crown  of  glory.  A  few  such  have  I  seen  ;  and 
from  them  I  seemed  to  learn  what  was  the  likeness  of  our  Father 
who  is  in  heaven.  To  such  an  old  age  may  he  bring  you  and 
me,  and  all  for  whom  we  are  bound  to  pray. 


LECTURE  II. 

THE    PTOLEMAIC    ERA. 

[  Continued.'] 

I  SAID  in  my  first  Lecture,  that  even  if  royal  influence  be 
profitable  for  the  prosecution  of  physical  science,  it  cannot  be 
profitable  for  art.  It  can  only  produce  a  literary  age,  as  it  did 
in  the  Ptolemaic  era ;  a  generation  of  innumerable  court-poets, 
artificial  epigrammatists,  artificial  idyllists,  artificial  dramatists 
and  epicists ;  above  all,  a  generation  of  critics.  Or  rather  shall 
we  say,  that  the  dynasty  was  not  the  cause  of  a  literary  age, 
but  only  its  correlative  ?  That  when  the  old  Greeks  lost  the 
power  of  being  free,  of  being  anything  but  the  slaves  of  oriental 
despots,  as  the  Ptolemies  in  reality  were,  they  lost  also  the 
power  of  producing  true  works  of  art ;  because  they  had  lost 
that  youthful  vigour  of  mind,  from  which  both  art  and  freedom 
sprang  ?  Let  the  case  be  as  it  will,  Alexandrian  literature  need 
not  detain  us  long — though,  alas !  it  has  detained  every  boy  who 
ever  trembled  over  his  Greek  grammar,  for  many  a  weary  year  ; 
and  I  cannot  help  suspecting,  has  been  the  main  cause  that  so 
many  young  men  who  have  spent  seven  years  in  learning  Greek, 
know  nothing  about  it  at  the  end  of  the  seven.  For  I  must  say, 
that  as  far  as  we  can  see,  these  Alexandrian  pedants  were 
thorough  pedants ;  very  polished  and  learned  gentlemen,  no 
doubt,  and,  like  Callimachus  the  pets  of  princes :  but  after  all, 
men  who  thought  that  they  could  make  up  for  not  writing  great 
works  themselves,  by  showing,  with  careful  analysis  and  com 
mentation,  how  men  used  to  write  them  of  old  ;  or  rather  how 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.         341 

they  fancied  men  used  to  write  them ;  for,  consider,  if  they  had 
really  known  how  the  thing  was  done,  they  must  needs  have 
been  able  to  do  it  themselves.  Thus  Callimachus,  the  favourite  of 
Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  and  librarian  of  his  Museum,  is  the  most 
distinguished  grammarian,  critic,  and  poet  of  his  day,  and  has 
for  pupils  Eratosthenes,  Apollonius  Rhodius,  Aristophanes  of 
Byzantium,  and  a  goodly  list  more.  He  is  an  Encyclopaedia  in 
himself.  There  is  nothing  the  man  does  not  know,  or  probably, 
if  we  spoke  more  correctly,  nothing  he  does  not  know  about.  He 
writes  on  history,  on  the  museum,  on  barbarous  names,  on  the 
wonders  of  the  world,  on  public  games,  on  colonization,  on  winds, 
on  birds,  on  the  rivers  of  the  world,  and — ominous  subject — a 
sort  of  comprehensive  history  of  Greek  literature,  with  a  careful 
classification  of  all  authors,  each  under  his  own  heading.  Greek 
literature  was  rather  in  the  sere  and  yellow  leaf,  be  sure,  when 
men  thought  of  writing  that  sort  of  thing  about  it.  But  still,  he 
is  an  encyclopaedic  man,  and  moreover,  a  poet.  He  writes  an 
epic,  "  Aitia,"  in  four  books,  on  the  causes  of  the  myths,  religi 
ous  ceremonies,  and  so  forth — an  ominous  sign,  for  the  myths, 
also,  and  the  belief  in  them  ;  also  a  Hecate,  Galataaa,  Glaucus — 
four  epics,  besides  comedies,  tragedies,  iambics,  choriambics, 
elegies,  hymns,  epigrams  seventy-three — and  of  these  last  alone 
can  we  say  that  they  are  in  any  degree  readable  ;  and  they  are 
courtly,  far-fetched,  neat,  and  that  is  all.  Six  hymns  remain, 
and  a  few  fragments  of  the  elegies  :  but  the  most  famous  elegy, 
on  Berenice's  hair  is  preserved  to  us  only  in  a  Latin  paraphrase 
of  Catullus.  It  is  curious,  as  the  earliest  instance  we  have  of 
genuinely  ungenuine  Court  poetry,  and  of  the  complimentary  lie 
which  does  not  even  pretend  to  be  true ;  the  flattery  which  will 
not  take  the  trouble  to  prevent  your  seeing  that  it  is  laughing 
in  your  face. 

Berenice  the  queen,  on  Ptolemy's  departure  to  the  wars,  vows 
her  beautiful  tresses  to  her  favourite  goddess,  as  the  price  of  her 
husband's  safe  return  ;  and  duly  pays  her  vow.  The  hair  is 
hung  up  in  the  temple :  in  a  day  or  two  after  it  has  vanished. 
Dire  is  the  wrath  of  Ptolemy,  the  consternation  of  the  priests, 
the  scandal  to  religion  :  when  Conon  the  court-astronomer,  luck 
ily  searching  the  heavens,  finds  the  missing  tresses  in  an  utterly 
unexpected  place, — as  a  new  constellation  of  stars,  which  to  this 
day  bears  the  title  of  Coma  Berenices.  It  is  so  convenient  to 
believe  the  fact,  that  everybody  believes  it  accordingly  ;  and 
Callimachus  writes  an  elegy  thereon  in  which  the  constellified, 
or  indeed  deified  tresses,  address  in  most  melodious  and  highly 
finished  Greek,  bedizened  with  concetto  on  concetto,  that  fair 
and  sacred  head  whereon  they  grew,  to  be  shorn  from  which  is 


342  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

so  dire  a  sorrow,  that  apotheosis  itself  can  hardly  reconcile  them 
to  the  parting. 

Worthy — was  not  all  this,  of  the  descendants  of  the  men  who 
fought  at  Marathon  and  Thermopylae  ?  The  old  Greek  civiliza 
tion  was  rotting  swiftly  down ;  while  a  fire  of  God  was  preparing, 
slowly  and  dimly,  in  that  unnoticed  Italian  town  of  Rome,  which 
was  destined  to  burn  up  that  dead  world,  and  all  its  works. 

Callimachus's  hymns,  those  may  read  who  list.  They  are 
highly  finished  enough  ;  the  work  of  a  man  who  knew  thoroughly 
what  sort  of  article  he  intended  to  make,  and  what  were  the  most 
approved  methods  of  making  it.  Curious  and  cumbrous  mytho 
logical  lore  comes  out  in  every  other  line.  The  smartness,  the 
fine  epithets,  the  recondite  conceits,  the  bits  of  effect,  are  beyond 
all  praise ;  but  as  for  one  spark  of  life,  of  poetry,  of  real  belief, 
you  will  find  none ;  not  even  in  that  famous  Lavacrum  Palladia 
which  Angelo  Poliziano  thought  worth  translating  into  Latin  ele 
giacs,  about  the  same  time  that  the  learned  Florentine,  Antonio 
Maria  Salviano,  found  Berenice's  hair  worthy  to  be  paraphrased 
back  from  Catullus's  Latin  into  Greek,  to  give  the  world  some 
faint  notion  of  the  inestimable  and  incomparable  original.  They 
must  have  had  much  time  on  their  hands.  But  at  the  Revival 
of  Letters,  as  was  to  be  expected,  all  works  of  the  ancients,  good 
and  bad,  were  devoured  alike  with  youthful  eagerness  by  the 
Medicis  and  the  Popes ;  and  it  was  not,  we  shall  see,  for  more 
than  one  century  after,  that  men's  tastes  got  sufficiently  matured 
to  distinguish  between  Calliinachus  and  the  Homeric  hymns,  or 
between  Plato  and  Proclus.  Yet  Callimachus  and  his  fellows 
had  an  effect  on  the  world.  His  writings,  as  well  as  those  of 
Philetas,  were  the  model  on  which  Ovid,  Propertius,  Tibullus, 
formed  themselves. 

And  so  I  leave  him,  with  two  hints.  If  any  one  wishes  to  see 
the  justice  of  my  censure,  let  him  read  one  of  the  Alexandrian 
hymns,  and  immediately  after  it,  one  of  those  glorious  old  Homeric 
hymns  to  the  very  same  deities  ;  let  him  contrast  the  insincere 
and  fulsome  idolatry  of  Callimachus,  with  the  reverent,  simple 
and  maniful  anthropomorphism  of  the  Homerist, — and  let  him 
form  his  own  judgment. 

The  other  hint  is  this.  If  Callimachus,  the  founder  of  Alex 
andrian  literature,  be  such  as  he  is,  what  are  his  pupils  likely  to 
become,  at  least  without  some  infusion  of  healthier  blood,  such  as 
in  the  case  of  his  Roman  imitators  produced  a  new  and  not  alto 
gether  ignoble  school  ? 

Of  Lycophron,  the  fellow-grammarian  and  Poet  of  Callima 
chus,  we  have  nothing  left  but  the  Cassandra,  a  long  iambic  poem, 
stuffed  with  traditionary  learning,  and  so  obscure,  that  it  obtained 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.          343 

for  him  the  surname  of  <worav6f,  the  dark  one.  I  have  tried  in 
vain  to  read  it :  you,  if  you  will,  may  do  the  same. 

Philetas,  the  remaining  member  of  the  Alexandrian  Triad, 
seems  to  have  been  a  more  simple,  genial,  and  graceful  spirit 
than  the  other  two,  to  whom  he  was  accordingly  esteemed  infe 
rior.  Only  a  few  fragments  are  left :  but  he  was  not  altogether 
without  his  influence,  for  he  was,  as  I  just  said,  one  of  the  "models 
on  which  Propertius  and  Ovid  formed  themselves ;  and  some,  in 
deed,  call  him  the  Father  of  the  Latin  elegy,  with  its  terseness, 
grace,  and  clear  epigrammatic  form  of  thought,  and,  therefore,  in 
a  great  degree,  of  our  modern  eighteenth  century  poets  ;  not  a 
useless  excellence,  seeing  that  it  is,  on  the  whole,  good  for  him 
who  writes  to  see  clearly  what  he  wants  to  say,  and  to  be  able  to 
make  his  readers  see  it  clearly  also.  And  yet  one  natural  strain 
is  heard  amid  all  this  artificial  jingle  ;  that  of  Theocritus.  It  is 
not  altogether  Alexandrian.  Its  sweetest  notes  were  learnt  amid 
the  chestnut  groves  and  orchards,  the  volcanic  glens  and  sunny 
pastures  of  Sicily  ;  but  the  intercourse  between  the  courts  of 
Iliero  and  the  Ptolemies  seems  to  have  been  continual.  Poets 
and  philosophers  moved  freely  from  one  to  the  other,  and  found 
a  like  atmosphere  in  both ;  and  in  one  of  Theocritus's  idyls,  two 
Sicilian  gentlemen  crossed  in  love,  agree  to  sail  for  Alexandria, 
and  volunteer  into  the  army  of  the  great  and  good  King  Ptolemy, 
of  whom  a  sketch  is  given  worth  reading ;  as  a  man  noble,  gen 
erous,  and  stately,  "knowing  well  who  loves  him,  and  still  better 
who  loves  him  not."  He  has  another  encomium  on  Ptolemy, 
more  laboured,  but  not  less  interesting:  but  the  real  value  of 
Theocritus  lies  in  his  powers  of  landscape-painting. 

One  can  well  conceive  the  delight  which  his  idyls  must  have 
given  to  those  dusty  Alexandrins,  pent  up  for  ever  between  sea 
and  sand-hills,  drinking  the  tank-water,  and  never  hearing  the 
sound  of  a  running  stream, — whirling,  too,  for  ever,  in  all  the 
bustle  and  intrigue  of  a  great  commercial  and  literary  city. 
Refreshing  indeed  it  must  have  been  to  them  to  hear  of  those 
simple  joys  and  simple  sorrows  of  the  Sicilian  shepherd,  in  a  land 
where  toil  was  but  exercise,  and  mere  existence  was  enjoyment. 
To  them,  and  to  us  also.  I  believe  Theocritus  is  one  of  the 
poets  who  will  never  die.  He  sees  men  and  things,  in  his  own 
light  way,  truly  ;  and  he  describes  them  simply,  honestly,  with 
little  careless  touches  of  pathos  and  humour,  while  he  floods  his 
whole  scene  with  that  gorgeous  Sicilian  air,  like  one  of  Titian's 
pictures  ;  with  still  sunshine,  whispering  pines,  the  lizard  sleep 
ing  on  the  wall,  and  the  sunburnt  cicala  shrieking  on  the  spray, 
the  pears  and  apples  dropping  from  the  orchard  bough,  the  goats 
clambering  from  crag  to  crag  after  the  cistus  and  the  thyme,  the 


344  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

.brown  youths  and  wanton  lasses  singing  under  the  dark  chestnut 
boughs,  or  by  the  leafy  arch  of  some — 

"  Grot  nymph-haunted, 

Garlanded  over  with  vine,  and  acanthus,  and  clambering  roses, 
Cool  in  the  fierce  still  noon,  where  the  streams  glance  clear  in  the  moss-beds; " 

and  here  and  there,  beyond  the  braes  and  meads,  blue  glimpses 
of  the  far-off  summer  sea ;  and  all  this  told  in  a  language  and  a 
metre  which  shapes  itself  almost  unconsciously,  wave  after  wave, 
into  the  most  luscious  song.  Doubt  not  that  many  a  soul  then, 
was  the  simpler,  and  purer,  and  better,  for  reading  the  sweet 
singer  of  Syracuse.  He  has  his  immoralities  ;  but  they  are  the 
immoralities  of  his  age  :  his  naturalness,  his  sunny  calm  and 
cheerfulness,  are  all  his  own. 

And  now,  to  leave  the  poets,  and  speak  of  those  grammarians 
to  whose  corrections  we  owe,  I  suppose,  the  texts  of  the  Greek 
poets  as  they  now  stand.  They  seem  to  have  set  to  work  at 
their  task  methodically  enough,  under  the  direction  of  their  most 
literary  monarch,  Ptolemy  Philadelphus.  Alexander  the  JEto- 
lian  collected  and  revised  the  tragedies,  Lycophron  the  come 
dies,  Zenodotus  the  poems  of  Homer,  and  the  other  poets  of  the 
Epic  cycle,  now  lost  to  us.  Whether  Homer  prospered  under 
all  his  expungings,  alterations,  and  transpositions — whether,  in 
fact,  he  did  not  treat  Homer  very  much  as  Bentley  wanted  to 
treat  Milton,  is  a  suspicion  which  one  has  a  right  to  entertain, 
though  it  is  long  past  the  possibility  of  proof.  Let  that  be  as  it 
may,  the  critical  business  grew  and  prospered.  Aristophanes  of 
Byzantium  wrote  glossaries  and  grammars,  collected  editions  of 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  esthetic  disquisitions  on  Homer, — one  wishes 
they  were  preserved,  for  the  sake  of  the  jest,  that  one  might 
have  seen  an  Alexandrian  cockney's  views  of  Achilles  and  Ulys 
ses  !  Moreover,  in  a  hapless  moment,  at  least  for  us  moderns, 
he  invented  Greek  accents  ;  thereby,  I  fear,  so  complicating  and 
confusing  our  notions  of  Greek  rythm,  that  we  shall  never,  to 
the  end  of  time,  be  able  to  guess  what  any  Greek  verse,  saving 
the  old  Homeric  Hexameter,  sounded  like.  After  a  while,  too, 
the  pedants,  according  to  their  wont,  began  quarrelling  about 
their  accents  and  their  recensions.  Moreover,  there  was  a  rival 
school  at  Pergamus,  where  the  fame  of  Crates  all  but  equalled 
the  Egyptian  fame  of  Aristarchus.  Insolent !  What  right  had 
an  Asiatic  to  know  anything  ?  So  Aristarchus  flew  furiously  on 
Crates,  being  a  man  of  plain  common  sense,  who  felt  a  correct 
reading  a  far  more  important  thing  than  any  of  Crates's  illustra 
tions,  aesthetic,  historical,  or  mythological ;  a  preference  not  yet 
quite  extinct,  in  one,  at  least,  of  our  Universities.  "  Sir,"  said  a 
clever  Cambridge  Tutor  to  a  philosophically  inclined  freshman, 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.  345 

"  remember,  that  our  business  is  to  translate  Plato  correctly,  not 
to  discover  his  meaning."  And,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  he 
was  right.  Let  us  first  have  accuracy,  the  merest  mechanical 
accuracy,  in  every  branch  of  knowledge.  Let  us  know  what  the 
thing  is  which  we  are  looking  at.  Let  us  know  the  exact  words 
an  author  uses.  Let  us  get  at  the  exact  value  of  each  word  by 
that  severe  induction  of  which  Buttmann  and  the  great  Germans 
have  set  such  noble  examples  ;  and  then,  and  not  till  then,  we 
may  begin  to  talk  about  philosophy,  and  aesthetics,  and  the  rest. 
Very  probably  Aristarchus  was  right  in  his  dislike  of  Crates's 
preference  of  what  he  called  criticism,  to  grammar.  Very  prob 
ably  he  connected  it  with  the  other  object  of  his  especial  hatred, 
that  fashion  of  interpreting  Homer  allegorically,  which  was 
springing  up  in  his  time,  and  which  afterwards  under  the  Neo- 
platonists  rose  to  a  frantic  height,  and  helped  to  destroy  in  them, 
not  only  their  power  of  sound  judgment,  and  of  asking  each  thing 
patiently  what  it  was,  but  also  any  real  reverence  for,  or  under 
standing  of,  the  very  authors  over  whom  they  declaimed  and 
sentimentalized. 

Yes — the  Cambridge  Tutor  was  right.  Before  you  can  tell 
what  a  man  means,  you  must  have  patience  to  find  out  what  he 
says.  So  far  from  .wishing  our  grammatical  and  philological 
education  to  be  less  severe  than  it  is,  I  think  it  is  not  severe 
enough.  In  an  age  like  this — an  age  of  lectures,  and  of  popular 
literature,  and  of  self-culture,  too  often  random  and  capricious, 
however  earnest,  we  cannot  be  too  careful  in  asking  ourselves, 
in  compelling  others  to  ask  themselves,  the  meaning  of  every 
word  which  they  use,  of  every  word  which  they  read ;  in  assur 
ing  them,  whether  they  will  believe  us  or  not,  that  the  moral, 
as  well  as  the  intellectual  culture,  acquired  by  translating  accu 
rately  one  dialogue  of  Plato,  by  making  out  thoroughly  the 
sense  of  one  chapter  of  a  standard  author,  is  greater  than  they 
will  get  from  skimming  whole  folios  of  Sclilegelian  aBsthetics, 
resumes,  histories  of  philosophy,  and  the  like  second-hand  infor 
mation,  or  attending  seven  lectures  a-week  till  their  lives'  end. 
It  is  better  to  know  one  thing,  than  to  know  about  ten  thousand 
things.  I  cannot  help  feeling  painfully,  after  reading  those  most 
interesting  Memoirs  of  Margaret  Fuller  Ossoli,  that  the  especial 
danger  of  this  time  is  intellectual  sciolism,  vagueness,  sentimen 
tal  eclecticism — and  feeling,  too,  that,  as  Socrates  of  old  believed, 
that  intellectual  vagueness  and  shallowness,  however  glib,  and 
grand,  and  eloquent  it  may  seem,  is  inevitably  the  parent  of  a 
moral  vagueness  and  shallowness  which  may  leave  our  age  as  it 
left  the  later  Greeks,  without  an  absolute  standard  of  right  or  of 
truth,  till  it  tries  to  escape  from  its  own  skepticism,  as  the  later 

15* 


346  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

Neoplatonists  did,  by  plunging  desperately  into  any  fetish-wor 
shipping  superstitition  which  holds  out  to  its  wearied,  and  yet 
impatient  intellect,  the  bait  of  decisions  already  made  for  it,  of 
objects  of  admiration  already  formed,  and  systematized. 

Therefore  let  us  honour  the  grammarian  in  his  place  ;  and, 
among  others,  these  old  grammarians  of  Alexandria  ;  only  being 
sure  that  as  soon  as  any  man  begins,  as  they  did,  displaying  him 
self  peacock-fashion,  boasting  of  his  science  as  the  great  pursuit 
of  humanity,  and  insulting  his  fellow-craftsmen,  he  becomes,  ipso 
facto ',  unable  to  discover  any  more  truth  for  us,  having  put  on  a 
habit  of  mind  to  which  induction  is  impossible  ;  and  is  thence 
forth  to  be  passed  by  with  a  kindly,  but  a  pitying  smile.  And 
so,  indeed,  it  happened  with  these  quarrelsome  Alexandrian 
grammarians  ;  as  it  did  with  the  Casaubons,  and  Scaligers  and 
Daciers  of  the  last  two  centuries.  As  soon  as  they  began  quar 
relling,  they  lost  the  power  of  discovering.  The  want  of  the 
inductive  faculty  in  their  attempts  at  philology,  is  utterly  ludi 
crous.  Most  of  their  derivations  of  words  are  about  on  a  par 
with  Jacob  Bohmen's  etymology  of  sulphur ;  wherein  he  makes 
sul,  if  I  recollect  right,  signify  some  active  principle  of  com 
bustion,  and  phur  the  passive  one.  It  was  left  for  more  patient 
and  less  noisy  men,  like  Grimm,  Bopp,  and  Buttmann,  to  found 
a  science  of  philology,  to  discover  for  us  those  great  laws  which 
connect  modern  philology  with  history,  ethnology,  physiology, 
and  with  the  very  deepest  questions  of  theology  itself.  And,  in 
the  meanwhile,  these  Alexandrians'  worthless  criticism  has  been 
utterly  swept  away ;  while  their  real  work,  their  accurate  editions 
of  the  classics,  remain  to  us  as  a  precious  heritage.  So  it  is 
throughout  history  :  nothing  dies  which  is  worthy  to  live.  The 
wheat  is  surely  gathered  into  the  garner ;  the  chaff  is  burnt  up 
by  that  eternal  fire,  which,  happily  for  this  universe,  cannot  be 
quenched  by  any  art  of  man,  but  goes  on  for  ever,  devouring 
without  indulgence  all  the  folly  and  the  falsehood  of  the  world. 

As  yet  you  have  heard  nothing  of  the  metaphysical  schools  of 
Alexandria  ;  for  as  yet  none  have  existed,  in  the  modern  accep 
tation  of  that  word.  Indeed,  I  am  not  sure  that  I  must  not  tell 
you  frankly,  that  none  ever  existed  at  all  in  Alexandria,  in  that 
same  modern  acceptation.  Hitter,  I  think,  it  is  who  complains, 
naively  enough,  that  the  Alexandrian  Neoplatonists  had  a  bad 
habit,  which  grew  on  them  more  and  more  as  the  years  rolled 
on,  of  mixing  up  philosophy  with  theology,  and  so  defiling,  or  at 
all  events  colouring,  its  pure  transparency.  There  is  no  denying 
the  imputation,  as  I  shall  show  at  greater  length  in  my  next 
Lecture.  But  one  would  have  thought,  looking  back  through  his 
tory,  that  the  Alexandrians  were  not  the  only  philosophers  guilty 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.          347 

of  this  shameful  act  of  syncretism.  Plato,  one  would  have 
thought,  was  as  great  a  sinner  as  they.  So  were  the  Hindoos. 
In  spite  of  all  their  logical  and  metaphysical  acuteness,  they 
were,  you  will  find,  unable  to  get  rid  of  the  notion  that  theologi 
cal  inquires  concerning  Brahma,  Atma,  Creeshna,  were  indisso- 
lubly  mixed  up  with  that  same  logic  and  metaphysic.  The  Par- 
sees  could  not  separate  questions  about  Ahriman  and  Ormuzd, 
from  Kant's  three  great  philosophic  problems  :  What  is  Man  ? — 
What  may  be  known  ? — What  should  be  done  ?  Neither,  indeed, 
could  the  earlier  Greek  sages.  Not  one  of  them,  of  any  school 
whatever, — from  the  semi-mythic  Seven  Sages  to  Plato  and 
Aristotle, — but  finds  it  necessary  to  consider  not  in  passing,  but 
as  the  great  object  of  research,  questions  concerning  the  gods  : — 
whether  they  are  real  or  not ;  one  or  many  ;  personal  or  imper 
sonal  ;  cosmic,  and  parts  of  the  universe,  or  organizers  and  rulers 
of  it ;  in  relation  to  man,  or  without  relation  to  him.  Even  in 
those  who  flatly  deny  the  existence  of  the  gods,  even  in  Lucre 
tius  himself,  these  questions  have  to  be  considered,  before  the 
question,  What  is  man  ?  can  get  any  solution  at  all.  On  the 
answer  given  to  them  is  found  to  depend  intimately  the  answer 
to  the  question,  What  is  the  immaterial  part  of  man  ?  Is  it  a 
part  of  nature,  or  of  something  above  nature  ?  Has  he  an  im 
material  part  at  all  ? — in  one  word,  Is  a  human  metaphysic  pos 
sible  at  all  ?  So  it  was  with  the  Greek  philosophers  of  old,  even, 
as  Asclepius  and  Ammonius  say,  with  Aristotle  himself.  "  The 
object  of  Aristotle's  metaphysic,"  one  of  them  says,  "  is  theologi 
cal.  Herein  Aristotle  theologizes."  And  there  is  no  denying 
the  assertion.  We  must  not  then  be  hard  on  the  Neoplatonists, 
as  if  they  were  the  first  to  mix  things  separate  from  the  founda 
tion  of  the  world.  I  do  not  say,  that  theology  and  metaphysic 
are  separate  studies.  That  is  to  be  ascertained  only  by  seeing 
some  tone  separate  them.  And  when  I  see  them  separated,  I 
shall  believe  them  separable.  Only  the  separation  must  not  be 
produced  by  the  simple  expedient  of  denying  the  existence  of  either 
one  of  them,  or  at  least  of  ignoring  the  existence  of  one  steadily 
during  the  study  of  the  other.  If  they  can  be  parted  without  in 
jury  to  each  other,  let  them  be  parted ;  and  till  then  let  us  sus 
pend  hard  judgments  on  the  Alexandrian  school  of  metaphysic, 
and  also  on  the  schools  of  that  curious  people  the  Jews,  who  had 
at  this  period  a  steadily  increasing  influence  on  the  thought,  as 
well  as  on  the  commercial  prosperity,  of  Alexandria. 

You  must  not  suppose,  in  the  meanwhile,  that  the  philosophers 
whom  the  Ptolemies  collected  (as  they  would  have  any  other 
marketable  article)  by  liberal  offers  of  pay  and  patronage,  were 
such  men  as  the  old  Seven  Sages  of  Greece,  or  as  Socrates, 


348  KIXGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

Plato,  and  Aristotle.  In  these  last  three  indeed,  Greek  thought 
reached  not  merely  its  greatest  height,  but  the  edge  of  a  preci 
pice,  down  which  it  rolled  headlong  after  their  decease.  The 
intellectual  defects  of  the  Greek  mind,  of  which  I  have  already 
spoken,  were  doubtless  one  great  cause  of  this  decay  :  but,  to 
my  mind,  moral  causes  had  still  more  to  do  with  it.  The  more 
cultivated  Greek  states,  to  judge  from  the  writings  of  Plato,  had 
not  been  an  over-righteous  people  during  the  generation  in  which 
he  lived.  And  in  the  generations  which  followed,  they  became 
an  altogether  wicked  people ;  immoral,  unbelieving,  hating  good, 
and  delighting  in  all  which  was  evil.  And  it  was  in  consequence 
of  these  very  sins  of  theirs,  as  I  think,  that  the  old  Hellenic  race 
began  to  die  out  physically,  and  population  throughout  Greece  to 
decrease  with  frightful  rapidity,  after  the  time  of  the  Achcean 
league.  The  facts  are  well  known ;  and  foul  enougli  they  are. 
When  the  Romans  destroyed  Greece,  God  was  just  and  merciful. 
The  eagles  were  gathered  together  only  because  the  carrion 
needed  to  be  removed  from  the  face  of  God's  earth.  And  at 
the  time  of  which  I  now  speak,  the  signs  of  approaching  death 
were  fearfully  apparent.  Hapless  and  hopeless  enough  were  the 
clique  of  men  out  of  whom  the  first  two  Ptolemies  hoped  to  form 
a  school  of  philosophy ;  men  certainly  clever  enough,  and  amus 
ing  withal,  who  might  give  the  kings  of  Egypt  many  a  shrewd 
lesson  in  king-craft,  and  the  ways  of  this  world,  and  the  art  of 
profiting  by  the  folly  of  fools,  and  the  selfishness  of  the  selfish ; 
or  who  might  amuse  them,  in  default  of  fighting-cocks,  by  puns 
and  repartees,  and  battles  of  logic ;  u  how  one  thing  cannot  be 
predicated  of  another,"  or  "  how  the  wise  man  is  not  only  to 
overcome  every  misfortune,  but  not  even  to  feel  it,"  and  other 
such  mighty  questions,  which  in  those  days  hid  that  deep  un 
belief  in  any  truth  whatsoever,  which  was  spreading  fast  over 
the  minds  of  men.  Such  word-splitters  were  Stilpo  and  Diodorus, 
the  slayer  and  the  slain.  They  were  of  the  Mcgaran  school,  and 
were  named  Dialectics ;  and  also,  with  more  truth,  Eristics,  or 
quarrelers.  Their  clique  had  professed  to  follow  Zeno  and  Soc 
rates  in  declaring  the  instability  of  sensible  presumptions  and 
conclusions,  in  preaching  an  absolute  and  eternal  Being.  But 
there  was  this  deep  gulf  between  them  and  Socrates  ;  that  while 
Socrates  professed  to  be  seeking  for  the  Absolute  and  Eternal, 
for  that  which  is,  they  were  content  with  affirming  that  it  exists. 
With  him,  as  with  the  older  sages,  philosophy  was  a  search  for 
truth.  With  them  it  was  a  scheme  of  doctrines  to  be  defended. 
And  the  dialectic  on  which  they  prided  themselves  so  much, 
differed  from  his  accordingly.  He  used  it  inductively,  to  seek 
out,  under  the  notions  and  conceptions  of  the  mind,  certain  abso- 


ALEXANDEIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.  349 

lute  truths  and  laws  of  which  they  were  only  the  embodiment. 
Words  and  thoughts  were  to  him  a  field  for  careful  and  reverent 
induction,  as  the  phenomena  of  nature  are  to  us  the  disciples  of 
Bacon.  But  with  these  hapless  Megarans,  who  thought  that 
they  had  found  that  for  which  Socrates  professed  only  to  seek 
dimly  and  afar  off,  and  had  got  it  safe  in  a  dogma,  preserved  as 
it  were  in  spirits  and  put  by  in  a  museum,  the  great  use  of  dia 
lectic  was  to  confute  opponents.  Delight  in  their  own  subtlety 
grew  on  them,  the  worship  not  of  objective  truth,  but  of  the 
forms  of  the  intellect  whereby  it  may  be  demonstrated ;  till  they 
became  the  veriest  word-splitters,  rivals  of  the  old  sophists  whom 
their  master  had  attacked,  and  justified  too  often  Aristophanes' 
calumny,  which  confounded  Socrates  with  his  opponents,  as  a 
man  whose  aim  was  to  make  the  worse  appear  the  better  reason. 

We  have  here,  in  both  parties,  all  the  marks  of  an  age  of  ex 
haustion,  of  skepticism ;  of  despair  about  finding  any  real  truth. 
No  wonder  that  they  were  superseded  by  the  Pyrrhonists,  who 
doubted  all  things,  and  by  the  Academy,  which  prided  itself  on 
setting  up  each  thing  to  knock  it  down  again  ;  and  so  by  prudent 
and  well-bred  and  tolerant  qualifying  of  every  assertion,  neither 
affirming  too  much,  nor  denying  too  much,  keep  their  minds  in  a 
wholesome — or  unwholesome — state  of  equilibrium,  as  stagnant 
pools  are  kept,  that  everything  may  have  free  toleration  to  rot 
undisturbed. 

These  hapless  caricaturists  of  the  dialectic  of  Plato,  and  the 
logic  of  Aristotle,  careless  of  any  vital  principles  or  real  results, 
ready  enough  to  use  fallacies  each  for  their  own  party,  and 
openly  proud  of  their  success  in  doing  so,  were  assisted  by 
worthy  compeers  of  an  outwardly  opposite  tone  of  thought,  the 
Cyrenaics,  Theodorus,  and  Hegesias.  With  their  clique,  as  with 
their  master  Aristippus,  the  senses  were  the  only  avenues  to 
knowledge;  man  was  the  measure  of  all  things;  and  "happiness, 
our  being's  end  and  aim."  Theodorus  was  surnamed  the  Atheist ; 
and,  it  seems,  not  without  good  reason  ;  for  he  taught  that  there 
was  no  absolute  or  eternal  difference  between  good  and  evil ; 
nothing  really  disgraceful  in  crimes  ;  no  divine  ground  for  laws, 
which  according  to  him  had  been  invented  by  men  to  prevent 
fools  from  making  themselves  disagreeable  ;  on  which  theory, 
laws  must  be  confessed  to  have  been  in  all  ages  somewhat  of  a 
failure.  He  seems  to  have  been,  like  his  master,  an  impudent, 
light-hearted  fellow,  who  took  life  easily  enough,  laughed  at  pat 
riotism,  and  all  other  high-flown  notions,  boasted  that  the  world 
was  his  country,  and  was  no  doubt  excellent  after-dinner  company 
for  the  great  king.  Hegesias,  his  fellow  Cyrenaic,  was  a  man  of 
a  darker  and  more  melancholic  temperament ;  and  while  Theo- 


350  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

dorus  contented  himself  with  preaching  a  comfortable  selfishness, 
and  obtaining  pleasure,  made  it  rather  his  study  to  avoid  pain. 
Doubtless  both  their  theories  were  popular  enough  at  Alexan 
dria,  as  they  were  in  France  during  the  analogous  period,  the 
Siecle  Louis  Quinze.  The  Contract  Social,  and  the  rest  of 
their  doctrines,  moral  and  metaphysical,  will  always  have  their 
admirers  on  earth,  as  long  as  that  variety  of  the  human  species 
exists,  for  whose  especial  behoof  Theodorus  held  that  laws  were 
made  ;  and  the  whole  form  of  thought  met  with  great  approba 
tion  in  after  years  at  Rome,  where  Epicurus  carried  it  to  its 
highest  perfection.  After  that,  under  the  pressure  of  a  train  of 
rather  severe  lessons,  which  Gibbon  has  detailed  in  his  Decline 
and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  little  or  nothing  was  heard  of 
it,  save  sotto  voce,  perhaps,  at  the  Papal  courts  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  To  revive  it  publicly,  or  at  least  as  much  of  it  as  could 
be  borne  by  a  world  now  for  seventeen  centuries  Christian,  was 
the  glory  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  moral  scheme  of 
Theodorus  has  now  nearly  vanished  among  us,  at  least  as  a  con 
fessed  creed :  and,  in  spite  of  the  authority  of  Mr.  Locke's  great 
and  good  name,  his  metaphysical  scheme  is  showing  signs  of  a 
like  approaching  disappearance.  Let  us  hope  that  it  may  be  a 
speedy  one  ;  for  if  the  senses  be  the  only  avenues  to  knowledge ; 
if  man  be  the  measure  of  all  things ;  and  if  law  have  not,  as 
Hooker  says,  her  fount  and  home  in  the  very  bosom  of  God  him 
self,  then  was  Homer's  Zeus  right  in  declaring  man  to  be  "  the 
most  wretched  of  all  the  beasts  of  the  field." 

And  yet  one  cannot  help  looking  with  a  sort  of  awe  (I  dare  not 
call  it  respect)  at  that  melancholic,  faithless  Hegesias.  Doubt 
less  he,  like  his  compeers,  and  indeed  all  Alexandria  for  three 
hundred  years,  cultivated  philosophy  with  no  more  real  purpose 
than  it  was  cultivated  by  the  graceless  beaux-esprits  of  Louis 
the  Fifteenth's  court,  and  with  as  little  practical  effect  on  moral 
ity  :  but  of  this  Hegesias  alone  it  stands  written,  that  his  teach 
ing  actually  made  men  do  something  ;  and  moreover,  do  the 
most  solemn  and  important  thing  which  any  man  can  do,  except 
ing  always  doing  Right.  I  must  confess,  however,  that  the  result 
of  his  teaching  took  so  unexpected  a  form,  that  the  reigning 
Ptolemy,  apparently  Philadelphus,  had  to  interfere  with  the 
sacred  right  of  every  man  to  talk  as  much  nonsense  as  he  likes, 
and  forbade  Hegesias  to  teach  at  Alexandria.  For  Hegesias,  a 
Cyrenaic  like  Theodorus,  but  a  rather  more  morose  pedant  than 
that  saucy  and  happy  scoffer,  having  discovered  that  the  great 
end  of  man  was  to  avoid  pain,  also  discovered  (his  digestion 
being  probably  in  a  disordered  state)  that  there  was  so  much 
more  pain  than  pleasure  in  the  world,  as  to  make  it  a  thoroughly 


ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  351 

disagreeable  place,  of  which  man  was  well  rid  at  any  price. 
Whereon  he  wrote  a  book  called  'ATroKaprepuv,  in  which  a  man 
who  had  determined  to  starve  himself  preached  the  miseries  of 
human  life,  and  the  blessings  of  death,  with  such  overpowering 
force,  that  the  book  actually  drove  many  persons  to  commit  sui 
cide,  and  escape  from  a  world  which  was  not  fit  to  dwell  in. — 
A  fearful  proof  of  how  rotten  the  state  of  society  was  becoming, 
how  desperate  the  minds  of  men,  during  those  frightful  centuries 
which  immediately  preceded  the  Christian  era,  and  how  fast  was 
approaching  that  dark  chaos  of  unbelief  and  unrighteousness, 
which  Paul  of  Tarsus  so  analyses  and  describes  in  the  first  chap 
ter  of  his  Epistle  to  the  Romans  ; — when  the  old  light  was  lost, 
the  old  faiths  extinct,  the  old  reverence  for  the  laws  of  family, 
and  national  life,  destroyed,  yea  even  the  natural  instincts  them 
selves  perverted  ;  that  chaos  whose  darkness  Juvenal,  and  Pe- 
tronius,  and  Tacitus  have  proved,  in  their  fearful  pages,  not  to 
have  been  exaggerated  by  the  more  compassionate,  though  more 
righteous  Jew. 

And  now  observe,  that  this  selfishness — this  wholesome  state 
of  equilibrium — this  philosophic  calm,  which  is  really  only  a  lazy 
pride,  was,  as  far  as  we  can  tell,  the  main  object  of  all  the  schools 
from  the  time  of  Alexander  to  the  Christian  era.  We  know 
very  little  of  those  Skeptics,  Cynics,  Epicureans,  Academics, 
Peripatetics,  Stoics,  of  whom  there  has  been  so  much  talk ;  ex 
cept  at  second  hand,  through  the  Romans,  from  whom  Stoi 
cism  in  after  ages  received  a  new  and  not  ignoble  life.  But 
this  we  do  know  of  the  later  sects,  that  they  gradually  gave  up 
the  search  for  truth,  and  propounded  to  themselves  as  the  great 
type  for  a  philosopher,  How  shall  a  man  save  his  own  soul  from 
this  evil  world  ?  They  may  have  been  right ;  it  may  have  been 
the  best  thing  to  think  about  in  those  exhausted  and  decaying 
times :  but  it  was  a  question  of  ethics,  not  of  philosophy,  in  the 
sense  which  the  old  Greek  sages  put  on  that  latter  word.  Their 
object  was,  not  to  get  at  the  laws  of  all  things,  but  to  fortify  them 
selves  against  all  things,  each  according  to  his  scheme,  and  so 
to  be  self-sufficient  and  alone.  Even  in  the  Stoics,  who  boldly 
and  righteously  asserted  an  immutable  morality,  this  was  the 
leading  conception.  As  has  been  well  said  of  them : — 

"  If  we  reflect  how  deeply  the  feeling  of  an  intercourse  be 
tween  men  and  a  divine  race  superior  to  themselves  had  worked 
itself  into  the  Greek  character, — what  a  number  qf  fables,  some 
beautiful,  some  impure,  it  had  impregnated  and  procured  credence 
for, — how  it  sustained  every  form  of  polity  and  every  system  of 
laws,  we  may  imagine  what  the  effects  must  have  been  of  its  dis 
appearance.  If  it  is  possible  for  any  man,  it  was  not,  certainly, 


352  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

possible  for  a  Greek,  to  feel  himself  connected  by  any  real  bonds 
with  his  fellow-creatures  around  him,  while  he  felt  himself  utterly 
separated  from  any  being  above  his  fellow-creatures.  But  the 
sense  of  that  isolation  would  affect  different  minds  very  differ 
ently.  It  drove  the  Epicurean  to  consider  how  he  might  make 
a  world  in  which  he  should  live  comfortably,  without  distracting 
visions  of  the  past  and  future,  and  the  dread  of  those  upper 
powers  who  no  longer  awakened  in  him  any  feelings  of  sym 
pathy.  It  drove  Zeno  the  Stoic  to  consider  whether  a  man  may 
not  find  enough  in  himself  to  satisfy  him,  though  what  is  beyond 
him  be  ever  so  unfriendly We  may  trace  in  the  produc 
tions  which  are  attributed  to  Zeno  a  very  clear  indication  of  the 
feeling  which  was  at  work  in  his  mind.  He  undertook,  for  in 
stance,  among  other  tasks,  to  answer  Plato's  Republic.  The 
truth  that  a  man  is  a  political  being,  which  informs  and  pervades 
that  book,  was  one  which  must  have  been  particularly  harass 
ing  to  his  mind,  and  which  he  felt  must  be  got  rid  of,  before  he 

could  hope  to  assert  his  doctrine  of  a  man's  solitary  dignity." 

Woe  to  the  nation  or  the  society  in  which  this  individualizing 
and  separating  process  is  going  on  in  the  human  mind  !  Whether 
it  take  the  form  of  a  religion  or  of  a  philosophy,  it  is  at  once  the 
sign  and  the  cause  of  senility,  decay,  and  death.  If  man  begins 
to  forget  that  he  is  a  social  being,  a  member  of  a  body,  and  that 
the  only  truths  which  can  avail  him  anything,  the  only  truths 
which  are  worthy  objects  of  his  philosophical  search,  are  those 
which  are  equally  true  for  every  man,  which  will  equally  avail 
every  man,  which  he  must  proclaim,  as  far  as  he  can,  to  every 
man,  from  the  proudest  sage  to  the  meanest  outcast,  he  enters,  I 
believe,  into  a  lie,  and  helps  forward  the  dissolution  of  that  society 
of  which  he  is  a  member.  I  care  little  whether  what  he  holds 
be  true  or  not.  If  it  be  true,  he  has  made  it  a  lie  by  appropriat 
ing  it  proudly  and  selfishly  to  himself,  and  by  excluding  others 
from  it.  He  has  darkened  his  own  power  of  vision  by  that  act 
of  self-appropriation,  so  that  even  if  he  sees  a  truth,  he  can  only 
see  it  refractedly,  discoloured  by  the  medium  of  his  own  private 
likes  and  dislikes,  and  fulfils  that  great  and  truly  philosophic 
law,  that  he  who  loveth  not  his  brother  is  in  darkness,  and 
knoweth  not  whither  he  goeth.  And  so  it  befell  those  old  Greek 
schools.  It  is  out  of  our  path  to  follow  them  to  Italy,  where 
sturdy  old  Roman  patriots  cursed  them,  and  with  good  reason, 
as  corrupting  the  morals  of  the  young.  Our  business  is  with 
Alexandria;  and  there,  certainly,  they  did  nothing  for  the  eleva 
tion  of  humanity.  What  culture  they  may  have  given,  probably 
helped  to  make  the  Alexandrians,  what  Ccesar  calls  them,  the 
most  ingenious  of  all  nations :  but  righteous  or  valiant  men  it 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.          353 

did  not  make  them.  When,  after  the  three  great  reigns  of  Soter, 
Philadelphia,  and  Euergetes,  the  race  of  the  Ptolemies  began 
to  wear  itself  out,  Alexandria  fell  morally,  as  its  sovereigns 
fell :  and  during  a  miserable  and  shameful  decline  of  a  hundred 
and  eighty  years,  sophists  wrangled,  pedants  fought  over  accents 
and  readings  with  the  true  odium  grammaticum,  and  kings 
plunged  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  abysses  of  luxury  and  incest, 
laziness  and  cruelty,  till  the  flood  came,  and  swept  them  all 
away.  Cleopatra,  the  Helen  of  Egypt,  betrayed  her  country  to 
the  Roman ;  and  thenceforth  the  Alexandrians  became  slaves  in 
all  but  name. 

And  now  that  Alexandria  has  become  a  tributary  province, 
is  it  to  share  the  usual  lot  of  enslaved  countries,  and  lose  all 
originality  and  vigour  of  thought  ?  Not  so.  From  this  point, 
strangely  enough,  it  begins  to  have  a  philosophy  of  its  own. 
Hitherto  it  has  been  importing  Greek  thought  into  Egypt  and 
Syria,  even  to  the  furthest  boundaries  of  Persia  ;  and  the  whole 
East  has  become  Greek  :  but  it  has  received  little  in  return. 
The  Indian  Gymnosophists,  or  Brahmins,  had  little  or  no  effect 
on  Greek  philosophy,  except  in  the  case  of  Pyrrho :  the  Persian 
Dualism  still  less.  The  Egyptian  symbolic  nature  worship  had 
been  too  gross  to  be  regarded  by  the  cultivated  Alexandrian  as 
anything  but  a  barbaric  superstition.  One  eastern  nation  had 
intermingled  closely  with  the  Macedonian  race,  and  from  it 
Alexandrian  thought  received  a  new  impulse. 

I  mentioned  in  my  first  lecture  the  conciliatory  policy  which 
the  Ptolemies  had  pursued  toward  the  Jews.  Soter  had  not 
only  allowed,  but  encouraged  them  to  settle  in  Alexandria  and 
Egypt,  granting  them  the  same  political  privileges  with  the 
Macedonians,  and  other  Greeks.  Soon  they  built  themselves  a 
temple  there,  in  obedience  to  some  supposed  prophecy  in  their 
sacred  writings,  which  seems  most  probably  to  have  been  a  wilful 
interpolation.  Whatsoever  value  we  may  attach  to  the  various 
myths  concerning  the  translation  of  their  Scriptures  into  Greek, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  were  translated  in  the  reign  of 
Soter,  and  that  the  exceedingly  valuable  Septuagint  version  is 
the  work  of  that  period.  Moreover,  their  numbers  in  Alexandria 
were  very  great.  When  Amrou  took  Constantinople  in  A.  D. 
640,  there  were  40,000  Jews  in  it ;  and  their  numbers  during 
the  Ptolemaic  and  Roman  periods,  before  their  temporary  ex 
pulsion  by  Cyril  about  412,  were  probably  greater;  and  Egypt 
altogether  is  said  to  have  contained  200,000  Jews.  They  had 
schools  there,  which  were  so  esteemed  by  their  whole  nation 
throughout  the  East,  that  the  Alexandrian  Rabbis,  the  Light  of 
Israel,  as  they  were  called,  may  be  fairly  considered  as  the 
centre  of  Jewish  thought  and  learning  for  several  centuries. 


354  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

We  are  accustomed,  and  not  without  reason,  to  think  with 
some  contempt  of  these  old  Rabbis,  Rabbinism,  Cabbalism,  are 
become  by-words  in  the  mouths  of  men.  It  may  be  instructive 
for  us — it  is  certainly  necessary  for  us,  if  we  wish  to  understand 
Alexandria — to  examine  a  little  how  they  became  so  fallen. 

Their  philosophy  .took  its  stand,  as  you  all  know,  on  certain 
ancient  books  of  their  people  ;  histories,  laws,  poems,  philosophi 
cal  treatises,  which  all  have  one  element  peculiar  to  themselves, 
namely,  the  assertion  of  a  living  personal  Ruler  and  Teacher, 
not  merely  of  the  Jewish  race,  but  of  all  the  nations  of  the  earth. 
After  the  return  of  their  race  from  Babylon,  their  own  records 
give  abundant  evidence  that  this  strange  people  became  the  most 
exclusive  and  sectarian  which  the  world  ever  saw.  Into  the 
causes  of  that  exclusiveness  I  will  not  now  enter ;  suffice  it  to 
say,  that  it  was  pardonable  enough  in  a  people  asserting  Mono 
theism  in  the  midst  of  idolatrous  nations,  and  who  knew,  from 
experience  even  more  bitter  than  that  which  taught  Plato  and 
Socrates,  how  directly  all  those  popular  idolatries  led  to  every 
form  of  baseness  and  immorality.  But  we  may  trace  in  them, 
from  the  date  of  their  return  from  Babylon,  especially  from  their 
settlement  in  Alexandria,  a  singular  change  of  opinion.  In  pro 
portion  as  they  began  to  deny  that  their  unseen  personal  Ruler 
had  anything  to  do  with  the  Gentiles, — the  nations  of  ,the  earth, 
as  they  called  them ;  in  proportion  as  they  considered  themselves 
as  his  only  subjects — or  rather,  him  and  his  guidance  as  their 
own  private  property, — exactly  in  that  proportion  they  began  to 
lose  all  living  or  practical  belief  that  he  did  guide  them.  He 
became  a  being  of  the  past ;  one  who  had  taught  and  governed 
their  forefathers  in  old  times  :  not  one  who  was  teaching  and 
governing  them  now.  I  beg  you  to  pay  attention  to  this  curious 
result ;  because  you  will  see,  I  think,  the  very  same  thing  occur 
ring  in  two  other  Alexandrian  schools,  of  which  I  shall  speak 
hereafter. 

The  result  to  these  Rabbis  was,  that  the  inspired  books  which 
spoke  of  this  Divine  guidance  and  government  became  objects  of 
superstitious  reverence,  just  in  proportion  as  they  lost  all  under 
standing  of  their  real  value  and  meaning.  Nevertheless,  this,  too, 
produced  good  results ;  for  the  greatest  possible  care  was  taken  to 
fix  the  Canon  of  these  books  ;  to  settle,  as  far  as  possible,  the  exact 
time  at  which  the  Divine  guidance  was  supposed  to  have  ceased  ; 
after  which  it  was  impious  to  claim  a  Divine  teaching ;  when  their 
sages  were  left  to  themselves,  as  they  fancied,  with  a  complete 
body  of  knowledge,  on  which  they  were  henceforth  only  to  com 
ment.  Thus,  whether  or  not  they  were  right  in  supposing  that 
the  Divine  Teacher  had  ceased  to  teach  and  inspire  them,  they 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.          355 

did  infinite  service  by  marking  out  for  us  certain  writers  whom 
he  had  certainly  taught  and  inspired.  No  doubt  they  were  right 
in^  their  sense  of  the  awful  change  which  had  passed  over  their 
nation.  There  was  an  infinite  difference  between  them  and  the 
old  Hebrew  writers.  They  had  lost  something  which  those  old 
prophets  possessed.  I  invite  you  to  ponder,  each  for  himself,  on 
the  causes  of  this  strange  loss :  bearing  in  mind  that  they  lost 
their  forefathers'  heir-loom,  exactly  in  proportion  as  they  began  to 
believe  it  to  be  their  exclusive  possession,  and  to  deny  other 
human  beings  any  right  to,  or  share  in  it.  It  may  have  been 
that  the  light  given  to  their  forefathers  had,  as  they  thought, 
really  departed.  It  may  have  been,  also,  that  the  light  was  there 
all  around  them  still,  as  bright  as  ever :  but  that  they  would  not 
open  their  eyes  and  behold  it ;  or  rather,  could  not  open  them, 
because  selfishness  and  pride  had  sealed  them.  It  may  have 
been,  that  inspiration  was  still  very  near  them,  too,  if  their  spirits 
had  been  willing  to  receive  it.  But  of  the  fact  of  the  change 
there  was  no  doubt.  For  the  old  Hebrew  seers  were  men  deal 
ing  with  the  loftiest  and  deepest  laws :  the  Rabbis  were  shallow 
pedants.  The  old  Hebrew  seers  were  righteous  and  virtuous 
men :  the  Rabbis  became,  in  due  time,  some  of  the  worst  and 
wickedest  men  who  ever  trod  this  earth. 

Thus  they,  too,  had  their  share  in  that  downward  career  of 
pedantry  which  we  have  seen  characterize  the  whole  past  Alex 
andrine  age.  They,  like  Zenodotus  and  Aristarchus,  were  com 
mentators,  grammarians,  sectarian  disputers :  they  were  not 
thinkers  or  actors.  Their  inspired  books  were  to  them  no  more 
the  words  of  living  human  beings  who  had  sought  for  the  Abso 
lute  Wisdom,  and  found  it  after  many  sins  and  doubts  and  sor 
rows.  The  human  writers  became  in  their  eyes  the  puppets  and 
mouth-pieces  of  some  magical  influence,  not  the  disciples  of  a 
living  and  loving  person.  The  book  itself  was,  in  their  belief, 
not  in  any  true  sense  inspired,  but  magically  dictated — by  what 
power  they  cared  not  to  define.  His  character  was  unimportant 
to  them,  provided  he  had  inspired  no  nation  but  their  own.  But, 
thought  they,  if  the  words  were  dictated,  each  of  them  must  have 
some  mysterious  value.  And  if  each  word  had  a  mysterious 
value,  why  not  each  letter  ?  And  how  could  they  set  limits  to 
that  mysterious  value  ?  Might  not  these  words,  even  rearrange 
ments  of  the  letters  of  them,  be  useful  in  protecting  them  against 
the  sorceries  of  the  heathen,  in  driving  away  those  evil  spirits,  or 
evoking  those  good  spirits,  who  though  seldom  mentioned  in  their 
early  records,  had  after  their  return  from  Babylon  begun  to  form 
an  important  part  of  their  unseen  world  ?  For  as  they  had  lost 
faith  in  the  One  Preserver  of  their  race,  they  had  filled  up  the 


356  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

void  by  a  ponderous  demonology  of  innumerable  preservers.  This 
process  of  thought  was  not  confined  to  Alexandria.  Dr.  Layard, 
in  his  last  book  on  Nineveh,  gives  some  curious  instances  of  ite 
prevalence  among  them  at  an  earlier  period,  well  worth  your 
careful  study.  But  it  was  at  Alexandria  that  the  Jewish  Cab- 
balism  formed  itself  into  a  system.  It  was  there  that  the  Jews 
learnt  to  become  the  jugglers  and  magic-mongers  of  the  whole 
Roman  world,  till  Claudius  had  to  expel  them  from  Rome,  as 
pests  to  rational  and  moral  society. 

And  yet,  among  these  hapless  pedants  there  lingered  nobler 
thoughts  and  hopes.  They  could  not  read  the  glorious  heir 
looms  of  their  race  without  finding  in  them  records  of  antique 
greatness  and  virtue,  of  old  deliverances  worked  for  their  fore 
fathers  ;  and  what  seemed  promises,  too,  that  that  greatness 
should  return.  The  notion  that  those  promises  were  conditional ; 
that  they  expressed  eternal  moral  laws,  and  declared  the  conse 
quences  of  obeying  those  laws,  they  had  lost  long  ago.  By  look 
ing  on  themselves  as  exclusively  and  arbitrarily  favoured  by 
Heaven,  they  were  ruining  their  own  moral  sense.  Things 
were  not  right  or  wrong  to  them  because  Right  was  eternal  and 
divine,  and  Wrong  the  transgression  of  that  eternal  right.  How 
could  that  be  ?  For  then  the  right  things  the  Gentiles  seemed 
to  do  would  be  right  and  divine  ; — and  that  supposition  in  their 
eyes  was  all  but  impious.  None  could  do  right  but  themselves, 
for  they  only  knew  the  law  of  God.  So,  right  with  them  had 
no  absolute  or  universal  ground,  but  was  reduced  in  their  minds 
to  the  performance  of  certain  acts  commanded  exclusively  to 
them, — a  form  of  ethics  which  rapidly  sank  into  the  most  petty 
and  frivolous  casuistry  as  to  the  outward  performance  of  those 
acts.  The  sequel  of  those  ethics  is  known  to  all  the  world,  in 
the  spectacle  of  the  most  unrivalled  religiosity,  and  scrupulous 
respectability,  combined  with  a  more  utter  absence  of  moral 
sense,  in  their  most  cultivated  and  learned  men,  than  the  world 
has  ever  beheld  before  or  since. 

In  such  a  state  of  mind  it  was  impossible  for  them  to  look  on 
their  old  prophets  as  true  seers,  beholding  and  applying  eternal 
moral  laws,  and,  therefore,  seeing  the  future  in  the  present  and 
in  the  past.  They  must  be  the  mere  utterers  of  an  irreversible 
arbitrary  fate ;  and  that  fate  must,  of  course,  be  favourable  to 
their  nation.  So,  now  arose  a  school  who  picked  out  from  their 
old  prophets  every  passage  which  could  be  made  to  predict  their 
future  glory,  and  a  science  which  settled  when  that  glory  was  to 
return.  By  the  arbitrary  rules  of  criticism  a  prophetic  day  was 
defined  to  mean  a  year  ;  a  week,  seven  years.  The  most  simple 
and  human  utterances  were  found  to  have  recondite  meanings 


ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  357 

relative  to  their  future  triumph  over  the  heathens  whom  they 
cursed  and  hated. — If  any  of  you  ever  come  across  the  popular 
Jewish  interpretations  of  The  Song  of  Solomon,  you  will  there 
see  the  folly  in  which  acute  and  learned  men  can  indulge  them 
selves  when  they  have  lost  hold  of  the  belief  in  anything  really 
absolute  and  eternal  and  moral,  and  have  made  Fate,  and  Time, 
and  Self,  their  real  deities.  But  this  dream  of  a  future  restora 
tion  was  in  no  wise  ennobled,  as  far  as  we  can  see,  with  any 
desire  for  a  moral  restoration.  They  believed  that  a  person 
would  appear  some  day  or  other  to  deliver  them.  Even  they 
were  happily  preserved  by  their  sacred  books  from  the  notion 
that  deliverance  was  to  be  found  for  them,  or  for  any  man,  in  an 
abstraction  or  notion  ending  in  -ation  or  -ality.  In  justice  to 
to  them  it  must  be  said,  that  they  were  too  wise  to  believe  that 
personal  qualities,  such  as  power,  will,  love,  righteousness,  could 
reside  in  any  but  in  a  person,  or  be  manifested  except  by  a  person. 
And  among  the  earlier  of  them  the  belief  may  have  been,  that  the 
ancient  unseen  Teacher  of  their  race  would  be  their  deliverer  : 
but  as  they  lost  the  thought  of  him,  the  expected  Deliverer 
became  a  mere  human  being :  or  rather,  not  a  human  being ;  for 
as  they  lost  their  moral  sense,  they  lost  in  the  very  deepest  mean 
ing  their  humanity,  and  forgot  what  man  was  like,  till  they  learned 
to  look  only  for  a  conqueror  ;  a  manifestation  of  power,  and  not 
of  goodness ;  a  destroyer  of  the  hated  heathen,  who  was  to  estab 
lish  them  as  the  tyrant  race  of  the  whole  earth.  On  that  fearful 
day,  on  which,  for  a  moment,  they  cast  away  even  that  last  dream, 
and  cried,  "  We  have  no  king  but  Caesar,"  they  spoke  the  secret 
of  their  hearts.  It  was  a  Caesar,  a  Jewish  Caesar,  whom  they 
had  been  longing  for  for  centuries.  And  if  they  could  not  have 
such  a  deliverer,  they  would  have  none  :  they  would  take  up  with 
the  best  embodiment  of  brute  Titanic  power  which  they  could 
find,  and  crucify  the  embodiment  of  Righteousness  and  Love. — 
Amid  all  the  metaphysical  schools  of  Alexandria,  I  know  none 
so  deeply  instructive  as  that  school  of  the  Rabbis,  "  the  glory  of 
Israel." 

But  you  will  say,  "  This  does  not  look  like  a  school  likely  to 
regenerate  Alexandrian  thought."  True :  and  yet  it  did  regene 
rate  it,  both  for  good  and  for  evil;  for  these  men  had  among 
them,  and  preserved  faithfully  enough  for  all  practical  purposes, 
the  old  literature  of  their  race ;  a  literature  which  I  firmly 
believe,  if  I  am  to  trust  the  experience  of  1900  years,  is  destined 
to  explain  all  other  literatures ;  because  it  has  firm  hold  of  the 
one  eternal  root-idea  which  gives  life,  meaning,  Divine  sanction, 
to  every  germ  or  fragment  of  human  truth  which  is  in  any  of 
them.  It  did  so,  at  least,  in  Alexandria  for  the  Greek  literature. 


358  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

About  the  Christian  era,  a  cultivated  Alexandrian  Jew,  a  disciple 
of  Plato  and  of  Aristotle,  did  seem  to  himself  to  find  in  the  sacred 
books  of  his  nation  that  which  agreed  with  the  deepest  discoveries 
of  Greek  philosophy ;  which  explained  and  corroborated  them. 
And  his  announcement  of  this  fact,  weak  and  defective  as  it  was, 
had  the  most  enormous  and  unexpected  results. — The  father  of 
New  Platonism  was  Philo  the  Jew. 


LECTURE  III. 

NEO-PLATONISM. 

WE  now  approach  the  period  in  which  Alexandria  began  to 
have  a  philosophy  of  its  own — to  be,  indeed,  the  leader  of  human 
thought  for  several  centuries. 

I  shall  enter  on  this  branch  of  ray  subject  with  some  fear  and 
trembling ;  not  only  on  account  of  my  own  ignorance,  but  on 
account  of  the  great  difficulty  of  handling  it  without  trenching  on 
certain  controversial  subjects  which  are  rightly  and  wisely  forbid 
den  here.  For  there  was  not  one  school  of  Metaphysic  at  Alex 
andria  :  there  were  two  ;  which,  during  the  whole  period  of  their 
existence,  were  in  internecine  struggle  with  each  other,  and  yet 
mutually  borrowing  from  each  other ;  the  Heathen,  namely,  and 
the  Christian.  And  you  cannot  contemplate,  still  less  can  you 
understand,  the  one  without  the  other.  Some  of  late  years  have 
become  all  but  unaware  of  the  existence  of  that  Christian  school : 
and  the  word  Philosophy,  on  the  authority  of  Gibbon,  who,  how 
ever  excellent  an  authority  for  facts,  knew  nothing  about  Philoso 
phy,  and  cared  less,  has  been  used  exclusively  to  express  heathen 
thought ;  a  misnomer  which  in  Alexandria  would  have  astonished 
Plotinus  or  Hypatia  as  much  as  it  would  Clement  or  Origen.  I 
do  not  say  that  there  is,  or  ought  to  be,  a  Christian  Metaphysic. 
I  am  speaking,  as  you  know,  merely  as  a  historian,  dealing  with 
facts  ;  and  I  say  that  there  was  one  ;  as  profound,  as  scientific,  as 
severe,  as  that  of  the  Pagan  JNeoplatonists ;  starting  indeed,  as  I 
shall  show  hereafter,  on  many  points  from  common  ground  with 
theirs.  One  can  hardly  doubt,  I  should  fancy,  that  many  parts  of 
St.  John's  Gospel  and  Epistles,  whatever  view  we  may  take  of 
them,  if  they  are  to  be  called  anything,  are  to  be  called  meta- 
physic  and  philosophic.  And  one  can  no  more  doubt  that  before 
writing  them  he  had  studied  Philo,  and  was  expanding  Philo's 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.         359 

thought  in  the  direction  which  seemed  fit  to  him,  than  we  can 
doubt  it  of  the  earlier  Neoplatonists.  The  technical  language  is 
often  identical ;  so  are  the  primary  ideas  from  which  he  starts, 
howsoever  widely  the  conclusions  may  differ.  If  Plotinus  con 
sidered  himself  an  intellectual  disciple  of  Plato,  so  did  Origen  and 
Clemens.  And  I  must,  as  I  said  before,  speak  of  both,  or  of  nei 
ther.  My  only  hope  of  escaping  delicate  ground  lies  in  the  curious 
fact,  that  rightly  or  wrongly,  the  form  in  which  Christianity  pre 
sented  itself  to  the  old  Alexandrian  thinkers  was  so  utterly  differ 
ent  from  the  popular  conception  of  it  in  modern  England,  that  one 
may  very  likely  be  able  to  tell  what  little  one  knows  about  it, 
almost  without  mentioning  a  single  doctrine  which  now  influences 
the  religious  world. 

But  far  greater  is  my  fear,  that  to  a  modern  British  audi 
tory,  trained  in  the  school  of  Locke,  much  of  ancient  thought, 
heathen  as  well  as  Christian,  may  seem  so  utterly  the  product  of 
the  imagination,  so  utterly  without  any  corresponding  reality  in 
the  universe,  as  to  look  like  mere  unintelligible  madness.  Still, 
I  must  try  ;  only  entreating  my  hearers  to  consider,  that  how 
much  soever  we  may  honour  Locke  and  his  great  Scotch  follow 
ers,  we  are  not  bound  to  believe  them  either  infallible,  or  alto 
gether  world-embracing ;  that  there  have  been  other  methods 
than  theirs  of  conceiving  the  Unseen  ;  that  the  common  ground 
from  which  both  Christian  and  heathen  Alexandrians  start,  is 
not  merely  a  private  vagary  of  their  own  ;  but  one  which  has 
been  accepted  undoubtingly,  under  so  many  various  forms,  by  so 
many  different  races,  as  to  give  something  of  an  inductive  proba 
bility  that  it  is  not  a  mere  dream,  but  may  be  a  right  and  true 
instinct  of  the  human  mind.  I  mean  the  belief  that  the  things 
which  we  see — nature  and  all  her  phenomena — are  temporal, 
and  born  only  to  die  ;  mere  shadows  of  some  unseen  realities, 
from  whom  their  laws  and  life  are  derived ;  while  the  eternal 
things  which  subsist  without  growth,  decay  or  change,  the  only 
real,  only  truly  existing  things,  in  short,  are  certain  things  which 
are  not  seen ;  inappreciable  by  sense,  or  understanding,  or  imagina 
tion,  perceived  only  by  the  conscience  and  the  reason.  And  that 
again,  the  problem  of  philosophy,  the  highest  good  for  man,  that 
for  the  sake  of  which  death  were  a  gain,  without  which  life  is 
worthless,  a  drudgery,  a  degradation,  a  failure,  and  a  ruin,  is  to 
discover  what  those  unseen  eternal  things  are,  to  know  them, 
possess  them,  be  in  harmony  with  them,  and  thereby  alone  to 
rise  to  any  real  and  solid  power,  or  safety,  or  nobleness.  It  is  a 
strange  dream.  But  you  will  see  that  it  is  one  which  does  not 
bear  much  upon  "  points  of  controversy,"  any  more  than  on 
"  Locke's  philosophy : "  nevertheless,  when  we  find  this  same 


#60  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

strange  dream  arising,  apparently  without  inter-communion  of 
thought,  among  the  old  Hindoos,  among  the  Greeks,  among  the 
Jews  ;  and  lastly,  when  we  see  it  springing  again  in  the  middle 
age,  in  the  mind  of  the  almost  forgotten  author  of  the  Deut 
sche  Theologie,  and  so  becoming  the  parent,  not  merely  of 
Luther's  deepest  belief,  or  of  the  German  mystic  schools  of  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  but  of  the  great  German 
Philosophy  itself  as  developed  by  Kant,  and  Fichte,  and  Schel- 
ling,  and  Hegel,  we  must  at  least  confess  it  to  be  a  popular  delu 
sion,  if  nothing  better,  vast  enough  and  common  enough  to  be 
worth  a  little  patient  investigation,  wheresoever  we  may  find  it 
stirring  the  human  mind. 

But  I  have  hope,  still,  that  I  may  find  sympathy  and  compre 
hension  among  some,  at  least,  of  my  audience,  as  I  proceed  to 
examine  the  ancient  realist  schools  of  Alexandria,  on  account  of 
their  knowledge  of  the  modern  realist  schools  of  Germany.  For 
I  cannot  but  see,  that  a  revulsion  is  taking  place  in  the  thoughts 
of  our  nation  upon  metaphysic  subjects,  and  that  Scotland,  as 
usual,  is  taking  the  lead  therein.  That  most  illustrious  Scotch 
man,  Mr.  Thomas  Carlyle,  first  vindicated  the  great  German 
Realists  from  the  vulgar  misconceptions  about  them  which  were 
so  common  at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  and  brought  the 
minds  of  studious  men  to  a  more  just  appreciation  of  the  philo 
sophic  severity,  the  moral  grandeur,  of  such  thinkers  as  Eman- 
uel  Kant,  and  Gottlieb  Fichte.  To  another  Scotch  gentleman, 
who,  I  believe,  has  honoured  me  by  his  presence  here  to  night, 
we  owe  most  valuable  translations  of  some  of  Fichte's  works  ; 
to  be  followed,  I  trust,  by  more.  And  though,  as  a  humble  disci 
ple  of  Bacon,  I  cannot  but  think  that  the  method  both  of  Kant 
and  Fichte  possesses  somewhat  of  the  same  inherent  defect  as 
the  method  of  the  Neoplatonist  school,  yet  I  should  be  most  un 
fair  did  I  not  express  my  deep  obligations  to  them,  and  advise 
all  those  to  study  them  carefully,  who  wish  to  gain  a  clear  con 
ception  either  of  the  old  Alexandrian  schools,  or  of  those  intel 
lectual  movements  which  are  agitating  the  modern  mind,  and 
which  will,  I  doubt  not,  issue  in  a  clearer  light,  and  in  a  nobler 
life,  if  not  for  us,  yet  still  for  our  children's  children  for  ever. 

The  name  of  Philo  the  Jew  is  now  all  but  forgotten  among 
us.  He  was  laughed  out  of  sight  during  the  last  century,  as  a 
dreamer  and  an  allegorist,  who  tried  eclectically  to  patch  together 
Plato  and  Moses.  The  present  age,  however,  is  rapidly  begin 
ning  to  suspect  that  all  who  thought  before  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury  were  not  altogether  either  fools  or  imposters  ;  old  wisdom  is 
obtaining  a  fairer  hearing  day  by  day,  and  is  found  not  to  be  so 
contradictory  to  new  wisdom  as  was  supposed.  We  are  begin- 


ALEXANDRIA  AND    HER   SCHOOLS.  361 

ning,  too,  to  be  more  inclined  to  justify  Providence,  by  believing 
that  lies  are  by  their  very  nature  impotent  and  doomed  to  die ;  that 
everything  which  has  had  any  great  or  permanent  influence  on' 
the  human  mind,  must  have  in  it  some  germ  of  eternal  truth  ; 
and  setting  ourselves  to  separate  that  germ  of  truth  from  the 
mistakes  which  may  have  distorted  and  overlaid  it.  "  Let  us 
believe,  or  at  least  hope  the  same,  for  a  few  minutes,  of  Philo, 
and  try  to  find  out  what  was  the  secret  of  his  power,  what  the 
secret  of  his  weakness. 

First.  I  cannot  think  that  he  had  to  treat  his  own  sacred 
books  unfairly,  to  make  them  agree  with  the  root-idea  of  Soc 
rates  and  Plato.  Socrates  and  Plato  acknowledged  a  Divine 
teacher  of  the  human  spirit ;  that  was  the  ground  of  their  phi 
losophy.  So  did  the  literature  of  the  Jews.  Socrates  and  Plato, 
with  all  the  Greek  sages  till  the  Sophistic  era,  held  that  the 
object  of  philosophy  was  the  search  after  that  which  truly  exists  : 
that  he  who  found  that,  found  wisdom  :  Philo's  books  taught  him 
the  same  truth  :  but  they  taught  him  also,  that  the  search  for 
wisdom  was  not  merely  the  search  for  that  which  is,  but  for  Him 
who  is ;  not  for  a  thing,  but  for  a  person.  I  do  not  mean  that 
Plato  and  the  elder  Greeks  had  not  that  object  also  in  view ; 
for  I  have  said  already  that  Theology  was  with  them  the  ulti 
mate  object  of  all  metaphysic  science :  but  I  do  think  that  they 
saw  it  infinitely  less  clearly  than  the  old  Jewish  sages.  Those 
sages  were  utterly  unable  to  conceive  of  an  absolute  truth, 
except  as  residing  in  an  absolutely  true  person  ;  of  absolute  wis 
dom,  except  in  an  absolutely  wise  person ;  of  an  absolute  order 
and  law,  except  in  a  lawgiver ;  of  an  absolute  good,  except  in  an 
absolutely  good  person ;  any  more  than  either  they  or  we  can 
conceive  of  an  absolute  love,  except  in  an  absolutely  loving  per 
son.  I  say  boldly,  that  I  think  them  right,  on  all  grounds  of 
Baconian  induction.  For  all  these  qualities  are  only  known  to 
us  as  exhibited  in  persons  ;  and  if  we  believe  them  to  have  any 
absolute  and  eternal  existence  at  all,  to  be  objective,  and  inde 
pendent  of  us,  and  the  momentary  moods  and  sentiments  of  our 
own  mind,  they  must  exist  in  some  absolute  and  eternal  person, 
or  they  are  mere  notions,  abstractions,  words,  which  have  no 
counterparts. 

But  here  arose  a  puzzle  in  the  mind  of  Philo,  as  it  in  reality 
had,  we  may  see,  in  the  minds  of  Socrates  and  Plato.  How 
could  he  reconcile  the  idea  of  that  absolute  and  eternal  one 
Being,  that  Zeus,  Father  of  Gods  and  men,  self-perfect,  self-con 
tained,  without  change  or  motion,  in  whom,  as  a  Jew,  he  believed 
even  more  firmly  than  the  Platonists,  with  the  Daemon  of  Soc 
rates,  the  Divine  Teacher  whom  both  Plato  and  Solomon  con- 

1G 


362  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

fessed  ?  Or  how,  again,  could  he  reconcile  the  idea  of  Him  with 
the  creative  and  providential  energy,  working  in  space  and  time, 
working  on  matter,  and  apparently  affected  and  limited,  if  not 
baffled,  by  the  imperfection  of  the  minds  which  he  taught,  by  the 
imperfection  of  the  matter  which  he  moulded  ?  This,  as  all  stu 
dents  of  philosophy  must  know,  was  one  of  the  great  puzzles  of 
old  Greek  philosophy,  as  long  as  it  was  earnest  and  cared  to 
have  any  puzzles  at  all ;  it  has  been,  since  the  days  of  Spinoza, 
the  great  puzzle  of  all  earnest  modern  philosophers.  Philo 
offered  a  solution  in  that  idea  of  a  Logos,  or  Word  of  God, 
Divinity  articulate,  speaking  and  acting  in  time  and  space,  and 
therefore  by  successive  acts  ;  and  so  doing,  in  time  and  space, 
the  will  of  the  timeless  and  spaceless  Father,  the  Abysmal  and 
Eternal  Being,  of  whom  He  was  the  perfect  likeness.  In  calling 
this  person  the  Logos,  and  making  Him  the  source  of  all  human 
reason,  and  knowledge  of  eternal  laws,  he  only  translated  from 
Hebrew  into  Greek  the  name  which  he  found  in  his  sacred 
books,  "  The  Word  of  God."  As  yet  we  have  found  no  unfair 
allegorizing  of  Moses,  or  twisting  of  Plato.  How  then  has  he 
incurred  this  accusation  ? 

I  cannofr  think,  again,  that  he  was  unfair  in  supposing  that  he 
might  hold  at  the  same  time  the  Jewish  belief  concerning  Crea 
tion,  and  the  Platonic  doctrine  of  the  real  existence  of  Arche 
typal  ideas,  both  of  moral  and  of  physical  phenomena.  I  do 
not  mean  that  such  a  conception  was  present  consciously  to  the 
mind  of  the  old  Jews,  as  it  was  most  certainly  to  the  mind  of 
Saint  Paul,  a  practised  Platonic  dialectician ;  but  it  seems  to  me, 
as  to  Philo,  to  be  a  fair,  perhaps  a  necessary  corollary  from  the 
Genetic  Philosophy,  both  of  Moses  and  of  Solomon. 

But  in  one  thing  he  was  unfair ;  namely,  in  his  allegorizing. 
But  unfair  to  whom  ?  To  Socrates  and  Plato,  I  believe,  as  much 
as  to  Moses  and  to  Samuel.  For  what  is  the  part  of  the  old 
Jewish  books  which  he  evaporates  away  into  mere  mystic  sym 
bols  of  the  private  experiences  of  the  devout  philosopher  ?  Its 
practical,  every-day  histories,  which  deal  with  the  common  hu 
man  facts  of  family  and  national  life,  of  man's  outward  and 
physical  labour  and  craft.  These  to  him  have  no  meaning,  ex 
cept  an  allegoric  one.  But  has  he  thrown  them  away  for  the 
sake  of  getting  a  step  nearer  to  Socrates,  or  Plato,  or  Aristotle  ? 
Surely  not.  To  them,  as  to  the  old  Jewish  sages,  man  is  most 
important  when  regarded  not  merely  as  a  soul,  but  as  a  man,  a 
social  being  of  flesh  and  blood.  Aristotle  declares  politics  to  be 
the  architectonical  science,  the  family  and  social  relations  to  be 
the  eternal  master-facts  of  humanity.  Plato,  in  his  Republic, 
sets  before  himself  the  Constitution  of  a  State,  as  the  crowning 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.          363 

problem  of  his  philosophy.  Every  work  of  his,  like  every  say 
ing  of  his  master  Socrates,  deals  with  the  common,  outward, 
vulgar  facts  of  human  life,  and  asserts  that  there  is  a  divine 
meaning  in  them,  and  that  reverent  induction  from  them  is  the 
way  to  obtain  the  deepest  truths.  Socrates  and  Plato  were  as 
little  inclined  to  separate  the  man  and  the  philosopher  as  Moses, 
Solomon,  or  Isaiah  were.  When  Philo,  by  allegorizing  away 
the  simple,  human  parts  of  his  books,  is  untrue  to  Moses'  teach 
ing,  he  becomes  untrue  to  Plato's.  He  becomes  untrue,  I  be 
lieve,  to  a  higher  teaching  than  Plato's.  He  loses  sight  of  an 
eternal  truth,  which  even  old  Homer  might  have  taught  him, 
when  he  treats  Moses  as  one  section  of  his  disciples  in  after 
years  treated  Homer. 

For  what  is  the  secret  of  the  eternal  freshness,  the  eternal 
beauty,  ay,  I  may  say  boldly,  in  spite  of  all  their  absurdities  and 
immoralities,  the  eternal  righteousness  of  those  old  Greek  myths  ? 
What  is  it  which  made  Socrates  and  Plato  cling  lovingly  and 
reverently  to  them,  they  scarce  knew  why,  while  they  deplored 
the  immoralities  to  which  they  had  given  rise  ?  What  is  it 
which  made  those  myths,  alone  of  all  old  mythologies,  the  par 
ents  of  truly  beautiful  sculpture,  painting,  poetry  ?  What  is  it 
which  makes  us  love  them  still ;  find,  even  at  times  against  our 
consciences,  new  meaning,  new  beauty  in  them ;  and  brings 
home  the  story  of  Perseus  or  of  Hercules,  alike  to  the  practised 
reason  of  Niebuhr,  and  the  untutored  instincts  of  Niebuhr's 
little  child,  for  whom  he  threw  them  into  simplest  forms  ?  Why 
is  it  that  in  spite  of  our  disagreeing  with  their  creed  and  their 
morality,  we  still  persist — and  long  may  we  persist,  or  rather  be 
compelled — as  it  were  by  blind  instinct,  to  train  our  boys  upon 
those  old  Greek  dreams ;  and  confess,  whenever  we  try  to  find  a 
substitute  for  them  in  our  educational  schemes,  that  we  have  as 
yet  none  ?  Because  those  old  Greek  stories  do  represent  the 
Deities  as  the  archetypes,  the  kinsmen,  the  teachers,  the  friends, 
the  inspirers  of  men.  Because  while  the  school-boy  reads  how 
the  Gods  were  like  to  men,  only  better,  wiser,  greater  ;  how  the 
Heroes  are  the  children  of  the  Gods,  and  the  slayers  of  the 
monsters  which  devour  the  earth ;  how  Athene  taught  men 
weaving,  and  Phoebus  music,  and  Vulcan  the  cunning  of  the 
stithy;  how  the  Gods  took  pity  on  the  noble-hearted  son  of 
Danae,  and  lent  him  celestial  arms,  and  guided  him  over  desert 
and  ocean  to  fulfil  his  vow ; — that  boy  is  learning  deep  lessons  of 
metaphysic,  more  in  accordance  with  the  reine  vernunft,  the  pure 
reason  whereby  man  perceives  that  which  is  moral,  and  spiritual, 
and  eternal,  than  he  would  from  all  disquisitions  about  being  and 
becoming,  about  actualities  and  potentialities,  which  ever  tor 
mented  the  weary  brain  of  man. 


364  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

Let  us  not  despise  the  gem,  because  it  has  been  broken  to 
fragments,  obscured  by  silt  and  mud.  Still  less  let  us  fancy  that 
one  least  fragment  of  it  is  not  more  precious  than  the  most  bril 
liant  paste  jewel  of  our  own  compounding,  though  it  be  polished 
and  facetted  never  so  completely.  For  what  are  all  these  myths 
but  fragments  of  that  great  metaphysic  idea,  which,  I  boldly  say, 
I  believe  to  be  at  once  the  justifier  and  the  harmonizer  of  all 
philosophic  truth  which  man  has  ever  discovered,  or  will  dis 
cover  ;  which  Philo  saw  partially,  and  yet  clearly ;  which  the 
Hebrew  sages  perceived  far  more  deeply,  because  more  humanly 
and  practically ;  which  Saint  Paul  the  Platonist,  and  yet  the 
Apostle,  raised  to  its  highest  power,  when  he  declared  that  the 
immutable  and  self-existent  Being,  for  whom  the  Greek  sages 
sought,  and  did  not  altogether  seek  in  vain,  has  gathered  together 
all  things  both  in  heaven  and  in  earth  in  one  inspiring  and  creat 
ing  Logos,  who  is  both  God  and  Man  ? 

Be  this  as  it  may,  we  find  that  from  the  time  of  Philo,  the 
deepest  thought  of  the  heathen  world  began  to  flow  in  a  theologic 
channel.  All  the  great  heathen  thinkers  henceforth  are  theo 
logians.  In  the  times  of  Nero,  for  instance,  Epictetus  the  slave, 
the  regenerator  of  Stoicism,  is  no  mere  speculator  concerning 
entities  and  quiddities,  correct  or  incorrect.  He  is  a  slave  search 
ing  for  the  secret  of  freedom,  and  finding  that  it  consists  in 
escaping  not  from  a  master,  but  from  self:  not  to  wealth  and 
power,  but  to  Jove.  He  discovers  that  Jove  is,  in  some  most 
mysterious,  but  most  real  sense,  the  Father  of  men  ;  he  learns 
to  look  up  to  that  Father  as  his  guide  and  friend. 

Numenius,  again,  in  the  second  century,  was  a  man  who  had 
evidently  studied  Philo.  He  perceived  so  deeply,  I  may  say  so 
exaggeratedly,  the  analogy  between  the  Jewish  and  the  Platonic 
assertions  of  an  Absolute  and  Eternal  Being,  side  by  side  with 
the  assertion  of  a  Divine  Teacher  of  man,  that  he  is  said  to  have 
uttered  the  startling  saying,  "  What  is  Plato  but  Moses  talking 
Attic?"  Doubtless  Plato  is  not  that:  but  the  expression  is 
remarkable,  as  showing  the  tendency  of  the  age.  He  too  looks 
up  to  God  with  prayers  for  the  guidance  of  his  reason.  He  too 
enters  into  speculation  concerning  God  in  his  absoluteness,  and 
in  his  connection  with  the  universe.  "  The  Primary  God,"  he 
says,  "  must  be  free  from  works,  and  a  King  ;  but  the  Demiurgus 
must  exercise  government,  going  through  the  heavens.  Through 
Him  comes  this  our  condition  ;  through  Him  Reason  being  sent 
down  in  efflux,  holds  communion  with  all  who  are  prepared  for 
it ;  God  then  looking  down,  and  turning  Himself  to  each  of  us, 
it  comes  to  pass  that  our  bodies  live  and  are  nourished,  receiving 
strength  from  the  outer  rays  which  come  from  Him.  But  when 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.          365 

God  turns  us  to  the  contemplation  of  Himself,  it  comes  to  pass 
that  these  things  are  worn  out  and  consumed,  but  that  the  reason 
lives,  being  partaker  of  a  blessed  life." 

This  passage  is  exceedingly  interesting,  as  containing  both  the 
marrow  of  old  Hebrew  metaphysic,  and  also  certain  notional  ele 
ments,  of  which  we  find  no  trace  in  the  Scripture,  and  which 
may  lead — as  we  shall  find  they  afterwards  did  lead — to  confus 
ing  the  moral  with  the  notional,  and  finally  the  notional  with  the 
material ;  in  plain  words,  to  Pantheism. 

You  find  this  tendency,  in  short,  in  all  the  philosophers  who 
flourished  between  the  age  of  Augustus  and  the  rise  of  Alexan 
drian  Neoplatonism.  Gibbon,  while  he  gives  an  approving  pat 
on  the  back  to  his  pet  "  Philosophic  Emperor,"  Marcus  Aurelius, 
blinks  the  fact  that  Marcus's  philosophy,  like  that  of  Plutarch, 
contains  as  an  integral  element,  a  belief  which  to  him  would  have 
been,  I  fear,  simply  ludicrous,  from  its  strange  analogy  with  the 
belief  of  John,  the  Christian  Apostle.  What  is  Marcus  Aure- 
lius's  cardinal  doctrine  ?  That  there  is  a  God  within  him,  a 
Word,  a  Logos,  which  "  has  hold  of  him,"  and  who  is  his  teacher 
and  guardian  ;  that  over  and  above  his  body  and  his  soul,  he  has 
a  Reason  which  is  capable  of  "  hearing  that  Divine  Word,  and 
obeying  the  monitions  of  that  God."  What  is  Plutarch's  car 
dinal  doctrine  ?  That  the  same  Word,  the  Daemon  who  spoke 
to  the  heart  of  Socrates,  is  speaking  to  him,  and  to  every  phi 
losopher  ;  "  coming  into  contact,"  he  says,  "  with  him  in  some 
wonderful  manner ;  addressing  the  reason  of  those,  who  like 
Socrates  keep  their  reason  pure,  not  under  the  dominion  of  pas 
sion,  nor  mixing  itself  greatly  with  the  body,  and  therefore  quick 
and  sensitive  in  responding  to  that  which  encountered  it." 

You  see  from  these  two  extracts  what  questions  were  arising 
in  the  minds  of  men,  and  how  they  touched  on  ethical  and  theo 
logical  questions.  I  say  arising  in  their  minds  :  I  believe  that  I 
ought  to  say  rather,  stirred  up  in  their  minds  by  One  greater 
than  they.  At  all  events  there  they  appeared,  utterly  indepen 
dent  of  any  Christian  teaching.  The  belief  in  this  Logos  or 
Daemon  speaking  to  the  Reason  of  man,  was  one  which  neither 
Plutarch  nor  Marcus,  neither  Numenius  nor  Ammonius,  as  far 
as  we  can  see,  learnt  from  the  Christians  ;  it  was  the  common 
ground  which  they  held  with  them  ;  the  common  battle-field 
which  they  disputed  with  them. 

Neither  have  we  any  reason  to  suppose  that  they  learnt  it  from 
the  Hindoos.  That  much  Hindoo  thought  mixed  with  Neoplatonist 
speculation,  we  cannot  doubt :  but  there  is  not  a  jot  more  evidence 
to  prove  that  Alexandrians  borrowed  this  conception  from  the  Ma- 
habharavata,  than  that  George  Fox  the  Quaker,  or  the  author  of 


366  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

the  Deutsche  Theologie,  did  so.  They  may  have  gone  to  Hindoo 
philosophy,  or  rather  to  second  and  third  hand  traditions  thereof, 
for  corroborations  of  the  belief:  but  be  sure,  it  must  have  ex 
isted  in  their  own  hearts  first,  or  they  would  never  have  gone 
thither.  Believe  it;  be  sure  of  it.  No  earnest  thinker  is  a 
plagiarist  pure  and  simple.  He  will  never  borrow  from  others 
that,  which  he  has  not  already,  more  or  less,  thought  out  for 
himself.  When  once  a  great  idea,  instinctive,  inductive,  (for 
the  two  expressions  are  nearer  akin  than  most  fancy,)  has 
dawned  on  his  soul,  he  will  welcome  lovingly,  awfully,  any  cor- 
roboration  from  foreign  schools,  and  cry  with  joy  :  "  Behold, 
this  is  not  altogether  a  dream ;  for  others  have  found  it  also. 
Surely  it  must  be  real,  universal,  eternal."  No  ;  be  sure  there 
is  far  more  originality  (in  the  common  sense  of  the  word)  and 
far  less  (in  the  true  sense  of  the  word)  than  we  fancy;  and  that 
it  is  a  paltry  and  shallow  doctrine  which  represents  each  suc 
ceeding  school  as  merely  the  puppets  and  dupes  of  the  preceding. 
More  originality,  because  each  earnest  man  seems  to  think  out 
for  himself  the  deepest  grounds  of  his  creed.  Less  originality, 
because,  as  I  believe,  one  common  Logos,  Word,  Reason,  reveals 
and  unveils  the  same  eternal  truth  to  all  who  seek  and  hunger 
for  it. 

Therefore  we  can,  as  the  Christian  philosophers  of  Alexandria 
did,  rejoice  over  every  truth  which  their  heathen  adversaries 
beheld,  and  attribute  them,  as  Clement  does,  to  the  highest  source, 
to  the  inspiration  of  the  one  and  universal  Logos.  With  Clement, 
Philosophy  is  only  hurtful  when  it  is  untrue  to  itself,  and  philo 
sophy  falsely  so  called  ;  true  philosophy  is  an  image  of  the  truth, 
a  divine  gift  bestowed  on  the  Greeks.  The  Bible,  in  his  eyes, 
asserts  that  all  forms  of  art  and  wisdom  are  from  God.  The 
wise  in  mind  have  no  doubt  some  peculiar  endowment  of  nature, 
but  when  they  have  offered  themselves  for  their  work,  they  re 
ceive  a  spirit  of  perception  from  the  Highest  Wisdom,  giving 
them  a^  new  fitness  for  it.  All  severe  study,  all  cultivation  of 
sympathy,  are  exercises  of  this  spiritual  endowment.  The  whole 
intellectual  discipline  of  the  Greeks,  with  their  philosophy,  came 
down  from  God  to  men.  Philosophy,  he  concludes  in  one  place, 
carries  on  "an  inquiry  concerning  Truth  and  the  nature  of  Being  : 
and  this  Truth  is  that  concerning  which  the  Lord  himself  said, 
— '  I  am  the  Truth.'  And  when  the  initiated  find,  or  rather 
receive,  the  true  philosophy,  they  have  it  from  the  Truth  itself ; 
that  is,  from  Him  who  is  true." 

While,  then,  these  two  schools  had  so  many  grounds  in  com 
mon,  where  was  their  point  of  divergence  ?  We  shall  find  it,  I 
believe,  fairly  expressed  in  the  dying  words  of  Plotinus,  the  great 


ALEXANDEIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.         367 

father  of  Neoplatonism.  "  I  am  striving  to  bring  the  God  which 
is  in  us,  into  harmony  with  the  God  which  is  in  the  universe.'* 
Whether  or  not  Plotinus  actually  so  spoke,  that  was  what  his 
disciples  not  only  said  that  he  spoke,  but  what  they  would  have 
wished  him  to  speak.  That  one  sentence  expresses  the  whole 
object  of  their  philosophy. 

But  to  that  Pantasnus,  Origen,  Clement,  and  Augustine  would 
have  answered, — "  And  we,  on  the  other  hand,  assert  that  the 
God  which  is  in  the  universe,  is  the  same  as  the  God  which  is 
in  you,  and  is  striving  to  bring  you  into  harmony  with  himself." 
There  is  the  experimentum  crucis.  There  is  the  vast  gulf  be 
tween  the  Christian  and  the  Heathen  schools,  which  when  any 
man  had  overleaped,  the  whole  problem  of  the  universe  was  from 
that  moment  inverted.  With  Plotinus  and  his  school  man  is 
seeking  for  God  ;  with  Clemens  and  his,  God  is  seeking  for  man. 
With  the  former,  God  is  passive,  and  man  active  ;  with  the 
latter,  God  is  active,  man  is  passive, — passive,  that  is,  in  so  far  as 
his  business  is  to  listen  when  he  is  spoken  to,  to  look  at  the  light 
which  is  unveiled  to  him,  to  submit  himself  to  the  inward  laws 
which  he  feels  reproving  and  checking  him  at  every  turn,  as 
Socrates  was  reproved  and  checked  by  his  inward  daemon. 

Whether  of  these  two  theorems  gives  the  higher  conception 
either  of  the  Divine  Being,  or  of  man,  I  leave  it  for  you  to  judge. 
To  those  old  Alexandrian  Christians,  a  being  who  was  not  seek 
ing  after  every  single  creature,  and  trying  to  raise  him,  could 
not  be  a  Being  of  absolute  Righteousness,  Power,  Love ;  could 
not  be  a  Being  worthy  of  respect  or  admiration,  even  of  philo 
sophic  speculation.  Human  righteousness  and  love  flows  forth 
disinterestedly  to  all  around  it,  however  unconscious,  however 
unworthy  they  may  be  ;  human  power  associated  with  goodness, 
seeks  for  objects  which  it  may  raise  and  benefit  by  that  power. 
We  must  confess  this,  with  the  Christian  schools,  or,  with  the 
Heathen  schools,  we  must  allow  another  theory,  which  brought 
them  into  awful  depths ;  which  may  bring  any  generation  which 
holds  it  into  the  same  depths. 

If  Clement  had  asked  the  Neoplatonists:  "  You  believe,  Plot 
inus,  in  an  absolutely  Good  Being.  Do  you  believe  that  it  de 
sires  to  shed  forth  its  goodness  on  all  ? "  "  Of  course,"  they 
would  have  answered,  "  on  those  who  seek  for  it,  on  the  philo 
sopher." 

"But  not,  it  seems,  Plotinus,  on  the  herd,  the  brutal,  ignorant 
mass,  wallowing  in  those  foul  crimes  above  which  you  have 
risen  ?  "  And  at  that  question  there  would  have  been  not  a  little 
hesitation.  These  brutes  in  human  form,  these  souls  wallowing  in 
earthly  mire,  could  hardly,  in  the  Neoplatonists'  eyes,  be  objects 
of  the  Divine  desire. 


368  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

"  Then  this  Absolute  Good,  you  say,  Plotinus,  has  no  relation 
with  them,  no  care  to  raise  them.  In  fact,  it  cannot  raise  them, 
because  they  have  nothing  in  common  with  it.  Is  that  your  no 
tion  ?  "  And  the  Neoplatonist  would  have,  on  the  whole,  al 
lowed  that  argument.  And  if  Clement  had  answered,  that  such 
was  not  his  notion  of  Goodness,  or  of  a  Good  Being,  and  that 
therefore  the  goodness  of  their  Absolute  Good,  careless  of  the 
degradation  and  misery  around  it,  must  be  something  very  dif 
ferent  from  his  notions  of  human  goodness  ;  the  Neoplatonists 
would  have  answered — indeed  they  did  answer — "After  all,  why 
not?  Why  should  the  Absolute  Goodness  be  like  our  human 
goodness  ? "  This  is  Plotinus's  own  belief.  It  is  a  question 
with  him,  it  was  still  more  a  question  with  those  who  came  after 
him,  whether  virtues  could  be  predicated  of  the  Divine  nature  ; 
.courage,  for  instance,  of  one  who  had  nothing  to  fear ;  self-re 
straint,  of  one  who  had  nothing  to  desire  ?  And  thus,  by  setting 
up  a  different  standard  of  morality  for  the  divine  and  for  the 
human,  Plotinus  gradually  arrives  at  the  conclusion,  that  virtue 
is  not  the  end,  but  the  means ;  not  the  Divine  nature  itself,  as 
the  Christian  schools  held,  but  only  the  purgative  process  by 
which  man  was  to  ascend  into  heaven,  and  which  was  necessary 
to  arrive  at  that  nature — that  nature  itself  being — what  ? 

And  how  to  answer  that  last  question,  was  the  abysmal  prob 
lem  of  the  whole  of  Neoplatonic  philosophy,  in  searching  for 
which  it  wearied  itself  out,  generation  after  generation,  till  tired 
equally  of  seeking  and  of  speaking,  it  fairly  laid  down  and  died. 
In  proportion  as  it  refused  to  acknowledge  a  common  divine 
nature  with  the  degraded  mass,  it  deserted  its  first  healthy  in 
stinct,  which  told  it  that  the  spiritual  world  is  identical  with  the 
moral  world,  with  right,  love,  justice  ;  it  tried  to  find  new  defi 
nitions  for  the  spiritual ;  it  conceived  it  to  be  identical  with  the 
intellectual.  That  did  not  satisfy  its  heart.  It  had  to  repeople 
the  spiritual  world,  which  it  had  emptied  of  its  proper  denizens, 
with  ghosts  ;  to  reinvent  the  old  doemonologies  and  polytheisms, 
— from  thence  to  descend  into  lower  depths,  of  which  we  will 
speak  hereafter. 

But  in  the  meanwhile  we  must  look  at  another  quarrel  which 
arose  between  the  two  twin  schools  of  Alexandria.  The  Neo- 
platonists  said,  that  there  is  a  divine  element  in  man.  The 
Christian  philosophers  assented  fervently,  and  raised  the  ofd 
disagreeable  question  :  "  Is  it  in  every  man  ?  In  the  publicans 
and  harlots  as  well  as  in  the  philosophers  ?  We  say  that  it  is." 
And  there  again  the  Neoplatonist  finds  it  over  hard  to  assent  to 
a  doctrine,  equally  contrary  to  outward  appearance,  and  galling 
to  Pharisaic  pride  ;  and  enters  into  a  hundred  honest  self-puz- 


ALEXANDRIA   AND    HER   SCHOOLS.  3C9 

zles  and  self-contradictions,  which  seem  to  justify  him  at  last  in 
saying,  "  No."  It  is  in  the  philosopher,  who  is  ready  by  nature, 
as  Plotinus  has  it,  and  as  it  were,  furnished  with  wings,  and  not 
needing  to  sever  himself  from  matter  like  the  rest,  but  disposed 
already  to  ascend  to  that  which  is  above.  And  in  a  degree  too, 
it  is  in  the  "  lover,"  who,  according  to  Plotinus,  has  a  certain 
innate  recollection  of  beauty,  and  hovers  round  it,  and  desires  it, 
wherever  he  sees  it.  Him  you  may  raise  to  the  apprehension 
of  the  one  incorporeal  Beauty,  by  teaching  him  to  separate 
beauty  from  the  various  objects  in  which  it  appears  scattered  and 
divided.  And  it  is  even  in  the  third  Class,  the  lowest  of  whom 
there  is  hope,  namely  the  musical  man,  capable  of  being  passively 
affected  by  beauty,  without  having  any  active  appetite  for  it ; 
the  sentimentalist,  in  short,  as  we  should  call  him  nowadays. 

But  for  the  herd,  Plotinus  cannot  say  that  there  is  any  thing 
divine  in  them.  And  thus  it  gradually  comes  out  in  all  Neo- 
platonist  writings  which  I  have  yet  examined,  that  the  Divine 
only  exists  in  a  man,  in  proportion  as  he  is  conscious  of  its  exist 
ence  in  him.  From  which  spring  two  conceptions  of  the  Divine 
in  man.  First,  is  it  a  part  of  him,  if  it  is  dependent  for  its  ex 
istence  on  his  consciousness  of  it  ?  Or  is  it,  as  Philo,  Plutarch, 
Marcus  Aurelius  would  have  held,  as  the  Christians  held,  some 
thing  independent  of  him,  without  him,  a  Logos  or  Word  speak 
ing  to  his  reason  and  conscience  ?  With  this  question  Plotinus 
grapples,  earnestly,  shrewdly,  fairly.  If  you  wish  to  see  how  he 
does  it,  you  should  read  the  fourth  and  fifth  books  of  the  sixth 
Ennead,  especially  if  you  be  lucky  enough  to  light  on  a  copy  of 
that  rare  book,  Taylor's  faithful  though  crabbed  translation. 

Not  that  the  result  of  his  search  is  altogether  satisfactory.  He 
enters  into  subtle  and  severe  disquisitions  concerning  soul. 
Whether  it  is  one,  or  many.  How  it  can  be  both  one  and  many. 
He  has  the  strongest  perception  that,  to  use  the  noble  saying  of 
the  Germans,  "  Time  and  Space  are  no  gods."  He  sees  clearly 
that  the  soul,  and  the  whole  unseen  world  of  truly  existing  being, 
is  independent  of  time  and  space  :  and  yet,  after  he  has  wrestled 
with  the  two  Titans,  through  page  after  page,  and  apparently 
conquered  them,  they  slip  in  again  unawares  into  the  battle-field, 
the  moment  his  back  is  turned.  He  denies  that  the  one  Reason 
has  parts — it  must  exist  as  a  whole  wheresoever  it  exists :  and 
yet  he  cannot  express  the  relation  of  the  individual  soul  to  it, 
but  by  saying  that  we  are  parts  of  it ;  or  that  each  thing,  down 
to  the  lowest,  receives  as  much  soul  as  it  is  capable  of  possessing. 
Hitter  has  worked  out  at  length,  though  in  a  somewhat  dry  and 
lifeless  way,  the  hundred  contradictions  of  this  kind  which  you 
meet  in  Plotinus ;  contradictions  which  I  suspect  to  be  insepara- 

16* 


370  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

ble  from  any  philosophy  starting  from  his  grounds.  Is  he  not 
looking  for  the  spiritual  in  a  region  where  it  does  not  exist ;  in 
the  region  of  logical  conceptions,  and  abstractions,  which  are  not 
realities,  but  only,  after  all,  symbols  of  our  own,  whereby  we  ex 
press  to  ourselves  the  processes  of  our  own  brain  ?  May  not  his 
Christian  contemporaries  have  been  nearer  scientific  truth,  as  well 
as  nearer  the  common  sense,  and  practical  belief  of  mankind,  in 
holding  that  that  which  is  spiritual  is  personal,  and  can  only  be 
seen  or  conceived  of  as  residing  in  persons ;  and  that  that  which  is 
personal  is  moral,  and  has  to  do,  not  with  abstractions  of  the  intel 
lect,  but  with  right  and  wfong,  love  and  hate,  and  all  which,  in  the 
common  instincts  of  men,  involves  a  free  will,  a  free  judgment,  a 
free  responsibility  and  desert  ?  And  that,  therefore,  if  there  were 
a  Spirit,  a  Demonic  Element,  an  universal  Reason,  a  Logos,  a 
Divine  Element,  closely  connected  with  man,  that  our  Reason, 
that  one  Divine  Element,  must  be  a  person  also  ?  At  least,  so 
strong  was  the  instinct  of  even  the  Heathen  schools  in  this  direc 
tion,  that  the  followers  of  Plotinus  had  to  fill  up  the  void  which 
yawned  between  man  and  the  invisible  things  after  which  he 
yearned,  by  reviving  the  whole  old  Pagan  Polytheism,  and  add 
ing  to  it  a  Dasmonology  borrowed  partly  from  the  Chaldees,  and 
partly  from  the  Jewish  rabbis,  which  formed  a  descending  chain 
of  persons,  downward  from  the  highest  Deities  to  heroes,  and  to 
the  guardian  angel  of  each  man  ;  the  meed  of  the  philosopher 
being,  that  by  self-culture  and  self-restraint  he  could  rise  above 
the  tutelage  of  some  lower  and  more  earthly  daemon,  and  be 
come  the  pupil  of  a  God,  and  finally,  a  God  himself. 

These  contradictions  need  not  lower  the  great  Father  of  Neo- 
platonism  in  our  eyes  as  a  moral  being.  All  accounts  of  him  seem 
to  prove  him  to  have  been  what  Apollo,  in  a  lengthy  oracle, 
declared  him  to  have  been,  "  good  and  gentle,  and  benignant  ex 
ceedingly,  and  pleasant  in  all  his  conversation."  He  gave  good 
advice  about  earthly  matters,  was  a  faithful  steward  of  moneys 
deposited  with  him,  a  guardian  of  widows  and  orphans,  a  righte 
ous  and  loving  man.  In  his  practical  life,  the  ascetic  and  gnostic 
element  comes  out  strongly  enough.  The  body,  with  him,  was 
not  evil,  neither  was  it  good ;  it  was  simply  nothing — why  care 
about  it  ?  He  would  have  no  portrait  taken  of  his  person ;  "  It 
was  humiliating  enough  to  be  obliged  to  carry  a  shadow  about 
with  him,  without  having  a  shadow  made  of  that  shadow."  He 
refused  animal  food,  abstained  from  baths,  declined  medicine  in 
his  last  illness,  and  so  died,  about  200  A.  D. 

It  is  in  his  followers,  as  one  generally  sees  in  such  cases,  that 
the  weakness  of  his  conceptions  comes  out.  Plotinus  was  an 
earnest  thinker,  slavishly  enough  reverencing  the  opinion  of 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.          371 

Plato,  whom  he  quotes  as  an  infallible  oracle,  with  a  "  He  says," 
as  if  there  were  but  one  he  in  the  universe  :  but  he  tried  hon 
estly  to  develop  Plato,  or  what  he  conceived  to  be  Plato,  on  the 
method  which  Plato  had  laid  down.  His  dialectic  is  far  superior, 
both  in  quantity  and  in  quality,  to  that  of  those  who  come  after 
him.  He  is  a  seeker.  His  followers  are  not.  The  great  work 
which  marks  the  second  stage  of  his  school  is  not  an  inquiry,  but 
a  justification,  not  only  of  the  Egyptian,  but  of  all  possible  theur 
gies  and  superstitions ;  perhaps  the  best  attempt  of  the  kind 
which  the  world  has  ever  seen ;  that  which  marks  the  third  is  a 
mere  cloud-castle,  and  inverted  pyramid,  not  of  speculation  but 
of  dogmatic  assertion,  patched  together  from  all  accessible  rags 
and  bones  of  the  dead  world.  Some  here  will,  perhaps,  guess 
from  my  rough  descriptions,  that  I  speak  of  lamblichus  and 
Proclus. 

Whether  or  not  lamblichus  wrote  the  famous  work  usually 
attributed  to  him,  which  describes  itself  as  the  letter  of  Abam- 
non  the  Teacher  to  Porphyry,  he  became  the  head  of  that  school 
of  Neoplatonists  who  fell  back  on  theurgy  and  magic,  and  utterly 
swallowed  up  the  more  rational,  though  more  hopeless,  school  of 
Porphyry.  Not  that  Porphyry,  too,  with  all  his  dislike  of  magic 
and  the  vulgar  superstitions — a  dislike  intimately  connected  with 
his  loudly  expressed  dislike  of  the  common  herd,  and  therefore 
of  Christianity,  as  a  religion  for  the  common  herd — did  not  be 
lieve  a  fact  or  two,  which  looks  to  us,  nowadays,  somewhat  un- 
philosophical.  From  him  we  learn  that  one  Ammonius,  trying 
to  crush  Plotinus  by  magic  arts,  had  his  weapons  so  completely 
turned  against  himself,  that  all  his  limbs  were  contracted.  From 
him  we  learn  that  Plotinus,  having  summoned  in  the  temple  of 
Isis  his  familiar  spirit,  a  god,  and  not  a  mere  daemon,  appeared. 
He  writes  sensibly  however,  enough,  to  one  Anebos,  an  Egyp 
tian  priest,  stating  his  doubts  as  to  the  popular  notions  of  the 
Gods,  as  beings  subject  to  human  passions  and  vices,  and  of 
theurgy  and  magic,  as  material  means  of  compelling  them  to  ap 
pear,  or  alluring  them  to  favour  man.  The  answer  of  Abamnon, 
Anebos,  lamblichus,  or  whoever  the  real  author  may  have  been, 
is  worthy  of  perusal  by  every  metaphysical  student,  as  a  curious 
phase  of  thought,  not  confined  to  that  time,  but  rife,  under  some 
shape  or  other,  in  every  age  of  the  world's  history,  and  in  this  as 
much  as  in  any.  There  are  many  passages  full  of  eloquence, 
many  more  full  of  true  and  noble  thought :  but,  on  the  whole,  it 
is  the  sewing  of  new  cloth  into  an  old  garment;  the  attempt  to 
suit  the  old  superstition  to  the  new  one,  by  eclectically  picking 
and  choosing,  and  special  pleading,  on  both  sides  ;  but  the  rent 
is  only  made  worse.  There  is  no  base  superstition  which  Abam- 


372  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

non  does  not  unconsciously  justify.  And  yet  he  is  rapidly  losing 
sight  of  the  real,  eternal  human  germs  of  truth  round  which 
those  superstitions  clustered,  and  is  really  further  from  truth  and 
reason  than  old  Homer  or  Hesiod,  because  further  from  the 
simple,  universal,  every  day  facts,  and  relations,  and  duties  of 
man,  which  are,  after  all,  among  the  most  mysterious,  and  also 
among  the  most  sacred  objects  which  man  can  contemplate. 

It  was  not  wonderful,  however,  that  Neoplatonism  took  the 
course  it  did.  Spirit,  they  felt  rightly,  was  meant  to  rule  matter ; 
it  was  to  be  freed  from  matter  only  for  that  very  purpose.  No 
one  could  well  deny  that.  The  philosopher,  as  he  rose,  and  be 
came,  according  to  Plotinus,  a  god,  or  at  least  approached  toward 
them,  must  partake  of  some  mysterious  and  transcendental  power. 
No  one  could  well  deny  that  conclusion,  granting  the  premiss. 
But  of  what  power  ?  What  had  he  to  show  as  the  result  of  his 
intimate  communion  with  an  unseen  Being  ?  The  Christian 
schools,  who  held  that  the  spiritual  is  the  moral,  answered  ac 
cordingly.  He  must  show  righteousness,  and  love,  and  peace  in 
a  Holy  Spirit.  That  is  the  likeness  of  God.  In  proportion  as 
a  man  has  them,  he  is  partaker  of  a  Divine  nature.  He  can 
rise  no  higher,  and  he  needs  no  more.  Platonists  had  said, — 
No,  that  is  only  virtue ;  and  virtue  is  the  means,  not  the  end. 
We  want  proof  of  having  something  above  that ;  something  more 
than  any  man  of  the  herd,  any  Christian  slave,  can  perform ; 
something  above  nature  ;  portents  and  wonders.  So  they  set  to 
work  to  perform  wonders;  and  succeeded,  I  suppose,  more  or 
less.  For  now  one  enters  into  a  whole  fairy  land  of  those  very 
phenomena  which  are  puzzling  us  so  nowadays — ecstasy,  clair 
voyance,  insensibility  to  pain,  cures  produced  by  the  effect  of 
what  we  now  call  mesmerism.  They  are  all  there,  these  modern 
puzzles,  in  those  old  books  of  the  long  bygone  seekers  for  wis 
dom.  It  makes  us  love  them,  while  it  saddens  us  to  see  that 
their  difficulties  were  the  same  as  ours,  and  that  there  is  nothing 
new  under  the  sun.  Of  course,  a  great  deal  of  it  all  was  "im 
agination."  But  the  question  then,  as  now,  is,  what  is  this  won 
der-working  imagination  ? — unless  the  word  be  used  as  a  mere 
euphemism  for  lying,  which  really,  in  many  cases,  is  hardly  fair. 
We  cannot  wonder  at  the  old  Neoplatonists  for  attributing  these 
strange  phenomena  to  spiritual  influence,  when  we  see  some  who 
ought  to  know  better  doing  the  same  thing  now ;  and  others, 
who  more  wisely  believe  them  to  be  strictly  physical  and  ner 
vous,  so  utterly  unable  to  give  reasons  for  them,  that  they  feel 
it  expedient  to  ignore  them  for  awhile,  till  they  know  more 
about  those  physical  phenomena  which  can  be  put  under  some 
sort  of  classification,  and  attributed  to  some  sort  of  inductive  law. 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.          373 

But  again.  These  ecstasies,  cures,  and  so  forth,  brought  them 
rapidly  back  to  the  old  priestcrafts.  The  Egyptian  priests,  the 
Babylonian  and  Jewish  sorcerers,  had  practised  all  this  as  a  trade 
for  ages,  and  reduced  it  to  an  art.  It  was  by  sleeping  in  the 
temples  of  the  deities,  after  due  mesmeric  manipulations,  that 
cures  were  even  then  effected.  Surely  the  old  priests  were  the 
people  to  whom  to  go  for  information.  The  old  philosophers  of 
Greece  were  venerable.  How  much  more  those  of  the  East,  in 
comparison  with  whom  the  Greeks  were  children  ?  Besides,  if 
these  daemons  and  deities  were  so  near  them,  might  it  not  be 
possible  to  behold  them  ?  They  seemed  to  have  given  up  caring 
much  for  the  world  and  its  course — 

"  Effugerant  adytis  templisque  relictis 
Di  quibus  imperium  steterat." 

The  old  priests  used  to  make  them  appear — perhaps  they  might 
do  it  again.  And  if  spirit  could  act  directly  and  preternaturally 
on  matter,  in  spite  of  the  laws  of  matter,  perhaps  matter  might 
act  on  spirit.  After  all,  were  matter  and  spirit  so  absolutely 
different  ?  Was  not  spirit  some  sort  of  pervading  essence,  some 
subtle  ethereal  fluid,  differing  from  matter  principally  in  being 
less  gross  and  dense  ?  This  was  the  point  to  which  they  went 
down  rapidly  enough  ;  the  point  to  which  all  philosophies,  I 
firmly  believe,  will  descend,  which  do  not  keep  in  sight  that  the 
spiritual  means  the  moral.  In  trying  to  make  it  mean  exclusively 
the  intellectual,  they  will  degrade  it  to  mean  the  merely  logical 
and  abstract ;  and  when  that  is  found  to  be  a  barren  and  lifeless 
phantom,  a  mere  projection  of  the  human  brain,  attributing 
reality  to  mere  conceptions  and  names,  and  confusing  the  subject 
with  the  object,  as  logicians  say  truly  the  Neoplatonists  did,  then, 
in  despair,  the  school  will  try  to  make  the  spiritual  something 
real,  or,  at  least,  something  conceivable,  by  reinvesting  it  with 
the  properties  of  matter,  and  talking  of  it  as  if  it  were  some 
manner  of  gas,  or  heat,  or  electricity,  or  force,  pervading  time 
and  space,  conditioned  by  the  accidents  of  brute  matter,  and  a 
part  of  that  nature  which  is  born  to  die. 

The  culmination  of  all  this  confusion  we  see  in  Proclus.  The 
unfortunate  Hypatia,  who  is  the  most  important  personage  be 
tween  him  and  lamblichus,  has  left  no  writings  to  our  times;  we* 
can  only  judge  of  her  doctrine  by  that  of  her  instructors  and  her 
pupils.  Proclus  was  taught  by  the  men  who  had  heard  her  lec 
ture  ;  and  the  golden  chain  of  the  Platonic  succession  descended 
from  her  to  him.  His  throne,  however,  was  at  Athens,  not  at 
Alexandria.  After  the  murder  of  the  maiden  philosopher,  Neo- 
platonism  prudently  retired  to  Greece.  But  Proclus  is  so  essen- 


374  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

tially  the  child  of  the  Alexandrian  school,  that  we  cannot  pass 
him  over.  Indeed,  according  to  M.  Cousin,  as  I  am  credibly 
informed,  he  is  the  Greek  philosopher  ;  the  flower  and  crown  of 
all  its  schools  ;  in  whom,  says  the  learned  Frenchman,  "  are 
combined,  and  from  whom  shine  forth,  in  no  irregular  or  uncer 
tain  rays,  Orpheus,  Pythagoras,  Plato,  Aristotle,  Zeno,  Plotinus, 
Porphyry,  and  lamblichus ; "  and  who  "  had  so  comprehended 
all  religions  in  his  mind,  and  paid  them  such  equal  reverence, 
that  he  was,  as  it  were,  the  priest  of  the  whole  universe  ! " 

I  have  not  the  honour  of  knowing  much  of  M.  Cousin's  works. 
I  never  came  across  them  but  on  one  small  matter  of  fact,  and 
on  that  I  found  him  copying  at  second  hand  an  anachronism 
which  one  would  have  conceived  palpable  to  any  reader  of  the 
original  authorities.  This  is  all  I  know  of  him,  saving  these  his 
raptures  over  Proclus,  of  which  I  have  quoted  only  a  small  por 
tion,  and  of  which  I  can  only  say,  in  Mr.  Thomas  Carlyle's 
words,  "  What  things  men  will  worship,  in  their  extreme  need !  " 
Other  moderns,  however,  have  expressed  their  admiration  of 
Proclus ;  and,  no  doubt,  many  neat  sayings  may  be  found  in  him 
(for  after  all  he  was  a  Greek)  which  will  be  both  pleasing  and 
useful  to  those  who  consider  philosophic  method  to  consist  in 
putting  forth  strings  of  brilliant  apophthegms,  careless  about 
either  their  consistency  or  coherence :  but  of  the  method  of  Plato 
or  Aristotle,  any  more  than  of  that  of  Kant  or  Mill,  you  will 
find  nothing  in  him.  He  seems  to  my  simplicity  to  be  at  once 
the  most  timid  and  servile  of  commentators,  and  the  most  cloudy 
of  declaimers.  Pie  can  rave  symbolism  like  Jacob  Bohmen  ; 
but  without  an  atom  of  his  originality  and  earnestness.  He  can 
develop  an  inverted  pyramid  of  daemonology,  like  Father  New 
man  himself ;  but  without  an  atom  of  his  art,  his  knowledge  of 
human  cravings.  He  combines  all  schools,  truly,  Chaldee  and 
Egyptian  as  well  as  Greek  :  but  only  scraps  from  their  mum 
mies,  drops  from  their  quintessences,  which  satisfy  the  heart  and 
conscience  as  little  as  they  do  the  logical  faculties.  His  Greek 
gods  and  heroes,  even  his  Alcibiades  and  Socrates,  are  "  ideas  ;  " 
that  is,  symbols  of  certain  notions  or  qualities  ;  their  flesh  and 
bones,  their  heart  and  brain,  have  been  distilled  away,  till  noth 
ing  is  left  but  a  word,  a  notion,  which  may  patch  a  hole  in  his 
huge  heaven-and-earth-embracing  system.  He,  too,  is  a  com 
mentator  and  a  deducer  ;  all  has  been  discovered ;  and  he  tries 
to  discover  nothing  more.  Those  who  followed  him  seem  to 
have  commented  on  his  comments.  With  him  Neoplatonism 
properly  ends.  Is  its  last  utterance  a  culmination,  or  a  fall  ? 
Have  the  Titans  scaled  heaven,  or  died  of  old  age,  "  exhibiting," 
as  Gibbon  says  of  them,  "  a  deplorable  instance  of  the  senility 


ALEXANDRIA  AND   HER   SCHOOLS.  375 

of  the  human  mind  ?  "  Read  Proclus,  and  judge  for  yourselves  : 
but  first  contrive  to  finish  every  thing  else  you  have  to  do  which 
can  possibly  be  useful  to  any  human  being.  Life  is  short,  and 
Art — at  least  the  art  of  obtaining  practical  guidance  from  the 
last  of  the  Alexandrians — very  long. 

And  yet — if  Proclus  and  his  school  became  gradually  unfaith 
ful  to  the  great  root  idea  of  their  philosophy,  we  must  not  imitate 
them.  We  must  not  believe  that  the  last  of  the  Alexandrians 
was  under  no  divine  teaching,  because  he  had  be-systemed  him 
self  into  confused  notions  of  what  that  teaching  was  like.  Yes, 
there  was  good  in  poor  old  Proclus  ;  and  it  too  came  from  the 
only  source  whence  all  good  comes.  Were  there  no  good  in 
him,  I  could  not  laugh  at  him  as  I  have  done ;  I  could  only  hate 
him.  There  are  moments  when  he  rises  above  his  theories  ; 
moments  when  he  recurs  in  spirit,  if  not  in  the  letter,  to  the 
faith  of  Homer,  almost  to  the  faith  of  Philo.  Whether  these 
are  the  passages  of  his  which  his  modern  admirers  prize  most,  I 
cannot  tell.  I  should  fancy  not :  nevertheless  I  will  read  you 
one  of  them. 

lie  is  about  to  commence  his  discourses  on  the  Parmenides, 
that  book  in  which  we  generally  now  consider  that  Plato  has 
been  most  untrue  to  himself,  and  fallen  from  his  usual  inductive 
method  to  the  .  ground  of  a  mere  a  priori  theorizer — and  yet  of 
which  Proclus  is  reported  to  have  said,  and,  I  should  conceive, 
said  honestly,  that  if  it,  the  Timaeus,  and  the  Orphic  fragments 
were  preserved,  he  did  not  care  whether  every  other  book .  on 
earth  were  destroyed.  But  how  does  he  commence  ? — 

"  I  pray  to  all  the  gods  and  goddesses  to  guide  my  reason  in 
the  speculation  which  lies  before  me,  and  having  kindled  in  me 
the  pure  light  of  truth,  to  direct  my  mind  upward  to  the  very 
knowledge  of  the  things  which  are,  and  to  open  the  doors  of  my 
soul  to  receive  the  divine  guidance  of  Plato,  and,  having  directed 
my  knowledge  into  the  very  brightness  of  being,  to  withdraw 
me  from  the  various  forms  of  opinion,  from  the  apparent  wisdom, 
from  the  wandering  about  things  which  do  not  exist,  by  that  purest 
intellectual  exercise  about  the  things  which  do  exist,  whereby 
alone  the  eye  of  the  soul  is  nourished  and  brightened,  as  Socrates 
says  in  the  Phcedrus  ;  and  that  the  Noetic  Gods  will  give  to  me 
the  perfect  reason,  and  the  Noeric  Gods  the  power  which  leads 
up  to  this,  and  that  the  rulers  of  the  Universe  above  the  heaven 
will  impart  to  me  an  energy  unshaken  by  material  notions  and 
emancipated  from  them,  and  those  to  whom  the  world  is  given  as 
their  dominion  a  winged  life,  and  the  angelic  choirs  a  true  mani 
festation  of  divine  things,  and  the  good  daemons  the  fulness  of 
the  inspiration  which  comes  from  the  Gods,  and  the  heroes  a 


376  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

grand,  and  venerable,  and  lofty  fixedness  of  mind,  and  the  whole 
divine  race  together  a  perfect  preparation  for  sharing  in  Plato's 
most  mystical  and  far-seeing  speculations,  which  he  declares  to 
us  himself  in  the  Parmenides  with  the  profundity  befitting  such 
topics,  but  which  he  (i.  e.  his  master  Syrianus)  completed  by  his 
most  pure  and  luminous  apprehensions,  who  did  most  truly  share 
the  Platonic  feast,  and  was  the  medium  for  transmitting  the 
divine  truth,  the  guide  in  our  speculations,  and  the  hierophant 
of  these  divine  words ;  who,  as  I  think,  came  down  as  a  type 
of  philosophy,  to  do  good  to  the  souls  that  are  here,  in  place  of 
idols,  sacrifices,  and  the  whole  mystery  of  purification,  a  leader 
of  salvation  to  the  men  who  are  now  and  who  shall  be  hereafter. 
And  may  the  whole  band  of  those  who  are  above  us  be  pro 
pitious  ;  and  may  the  whole  force  which  they  supply  be  at  hand, 
kindling  before  us  that  light  which,  proceeding  from  them,  may 
guide  us  to  them." 

Surely  this  is  an  interesting  document.  The  last  Pagan  Greek 
prayer,  I  believe,  which  we  have  on  record ;  the  death-wail  of 
the  old  world — not  without  a  touch  of  melody.  One  cannot  alto 
gether  admire  the  style ;  it  is  inflated,  pedantic,  written,  I  fear, 
with  a  considerable  consciousness  that  he  was  saying  the  right 
thing  and  in  the  very  finest  way  :  but  still  it  is  a  prayer.  A  cry 
for  light — by  no  means,  certainly,  like  that  noble  one  in  Tenny 
son's  In  Memoriam : — 

So  runs  my  dream.     But  what  am  I? 

An  infant  crying  in  the  night  ; 

An  infant  crying  for  the  light; 
And  with  no  language  but  a  cry. 

Yet  he  asks  for  light :  perhaps  he  had  settled  already  for  himself 
— like  too  many  more  of  us — what  sort  of  light  he  chose  to 
have  :  but  still  the  eye  is  turned  upward  to  the  sun,  not  inward 
in  conceited  fancy  that  self  is  its  own  illumination.  He  asks  : 
surely  not  in  vain.  There  was  light  to  be  had  for  asking.  That 
prayer  certainly  was  not  answered  in  the  letter :  it  may  have 
been  ere  now  in  the  spirit.  And  yet  it  is  a  sad  prayer  enough. 
Poor  old  man,  and  poor  old  philosophy  ! 

This  he  and  his  teachers  had  gained  by  despising  the  simpler 
and  yet  far  profounder  doctrine  of  the  Christian  schools,  that  the 
Logos,  the  Divine  Teacher  in  whom  both  Christians  and  Heathens 
believed,  was  the  very  archetype  of  men,  and  that  he  had  proved 
that  fact  by  being  made  flesh,  and  dwelling  bodily  among  them, 
that  they  might  behold  His  glory,  full  of  grace  and  truth,  and 
see  that  it  was  at  once  the  perfection  of  man  and  the  perfection 
of  God  :  that  that  which  was  most  divine  was  most  human,  and 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.          377 

that  which  was  most  human,  most  divine.  That  was  the  out 
come  of  their  metaphysic,  that  they  had  found  the  Absolute  One  ; 
because  One  existed  in  whom  the  apparent  antagonism  between 
that  which  is  eternally  and  that  which  becomes  in  time,  between 
the  ideal  and  the  actual,  between  the  spiritual  and  the  material, 
in  a  word,  between  God  and  man,  was  explained  and  reconciled 
for  ever. 

And  Proclus's  prayer,  on  the  other  hand,  was  the  outcome  of 
the  Neoplatonists'  metaphysic,  the  end  of  all  their  search  after 
the  One,  the  Indivisible,  the  Absolute,  this  cry  to  all  manner  of 
innumerable  phantoms,  ghosts  of  ideas,  ghosts  of  traditions, 
neither  things  nor  persons,  but  thoughts,  to  give  the  philosopher 
each  something  or  other,  according  to  the  nature  of  each.  Not 
that  he  very  clearly  defines  what  each  is  to  give  him :  but  still, 
he  feels  himself  in  want  of  all  manner  of  things,  and  it  is  as  well 
to  have  as  many  friends  at  court  as  possible,  Noetic  Gods,  Noeric 
Gods,  rulers,  angels,  daemons,  heroes — to  enable  him  to  do  what  ? 
To  understand  Plato's  most  mystical  and  far-seeing  speculations. 
The  Eternal  Nous,  the  Intellectual  Teacher,  has  vanished  further 
and  further  off:  further  off  still  some  dim  vision  of  a  supreme 
Goodness.  Infinite  spaces  above  that  looms  through  the  mist  of 
the  abyss  a  Primasval  One.  But  even  that  has  a  predicate,  for 
it  is  one ;  it  is  not  pure  essence.  Must  there  not  be  something 
beyond  that  again,  which  is  not  even  one,  but  is  nameless,  incon 
ceivable,  absolute  ?  What  an  abyss  !  How  shall  the  human 
mind  find  any  thing  whereon  to  rest,  in  the  vast  nowhere  between 
it  and  the  object  of  its  search  ?  The  search  after  the  One  issues 
in  a  wail  to  the  innumerable ;  and  kind  gods,  angels,  and  heroes, 
not  human  indeed,  but  still  conceivable  enough  to  satisfy  at  least 
the  imagination,  step  in  to  fill  the  void,  as  they  have  done  since, 
and  may  do  again ;  and  so  as  Mr.  Carlyle  has  it,  "  the  bottomless 
pit  got  roofed  over,"  as  it  may  be  again  ere  long. 

Are  we  then  to  say,  that  Neoplatonism  was  a  failure  ?  That 
Alexandria,  during  four  centuries  of  profound  and  earnest  thought, 
added  nothing  ?  Heaven  forbid  that  we  should  say  so  of  a 
philosophy  which  has  exercised  on  European  thought,  at  the 
crisis  of  its  noblest  life  and  action,  an  influence  as  great  as  did 
the  Aristotelian  system  during  the  middle  ages.  We  must  never 
forget,  that  during  the  two  centuries  which  commence  with  the 
fall  of  Constantinople,  and  end  with  our  civil  wars,  not  merely 
almost  all  great  thinkers,  but  courtiers,  statesmen,  warriors,  poets, 
were  more  or  less  Neoplatonists.  The  Greek  grammarians,  who 
migrated  into  Italy,  brought  with  them  the  works  of  Plotinus, 
lamblichus,  and  Proclus  ;  and  their  gorgeous  reveries  were  wel 
comed  eagerly  by  the  European  mind,  just  revelling  in  the  free 


378  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

thought  of  youthful  manhood.  And  yet  the  Alexandrian  impo 
tence  for  any  practical  and  social  purposes  was  to  be  manifested, 
as  utterly  as  it  was  in  Alexandria,  or  in  Athens  of  old.  Ficinus 
and  Picus  of  Mirandola  worked  no  deliverance,  either  for  Italian 
morals  or  polity,  at  a  time  when  such  deliverance  was  needed 
bitterly  enough.  Neoplatonism  was  petted  by  luxurious  and 
heathen  popes,  as  an  elegant  play  of  the  cultivated  fancy,  which 
could  do  their  real  power,  their  practical  system,  neither  good  nor 
harm.  And  one  cannot  help  feeling,  while  reading  the  magnifi 
cent  oration  on  Supra-sensual  Love,  which  Castiglione,  in  his 
admirable  book  The  Courtier,  puts  into  the  mouth  of  the  profli 
gate  Bembo,  how  near  mysticism  may  lie  not  merely  to  dilettant 
ism  or  to  Pharisaism,  but  to  sensuality  itself.  But  in  England, 
during  Elizabeth's  reign,  the  practical  weakness  of  Neoplatonism 
was  compensated  by  the  noble  practical  life  which  men  were 
compelled  to  live  in  those  great  times  ;  by  the  strong  hold  which 
they  had  of  the  ideas  of  family  and  national  life,  of  law  and  per 
sonal  faith.  And  I  cannot  but  believe  it  to  have  been  a  mighty 
gain  to  such  men  as  Sidney,  Raleigh,  and  Spenser,  that  they  had 
drunk,  however  slightly,  of  the  wells  of  Proclus  and  Plotinus. 
One  cannot  read  Spenser's  Fairy  Queen,  above  all,  his  Garden 
of  Adonis,  and  his  cantos  on  Mutability,  without  feeling  that  his 
Neoplatonism  must  have  kept  him  safe  from  many  a  dark 
eschatological  superstition,  many  a  narrow  and  bitter  dogmatism, 
which  was  even  then  tormenting  the  English  mind,  and  must 
have  helped  to  give  him  altogether  a  freer  and  more  loving  con 
ception,  if  not  a  consistent  or  accurate  one,  of  the  wondrous  har 
mony  of  that  mysterious  analogy  between  the  physical  and  the 
spiritual,  which  alone  makes  poetry  (and  I  had  almost  said 
philosophy  also)  possible,  and  have  taught  him  to  behold  alike  in 
suns  and  planets,  in  flowers  and  insects,  in  man  and  in  beings 
higher  than  man,  one  glorious  order  of  love  and  wisdom,  linking 
them  all  to  Him  from  whom  they  all  prpceed,  rays  from  his  cloud 
less  sunlight,  mirrors  of  his  eternal  glory. 

But  as  the  Elizabethan  age,  exhausted  by  its  own  fertility, 
gave  place  to  the  Caroline,  Neoplatonism  ran  through  much  the 
same  changes.  It  was  good  for  us,  after  all,  that  the  plain 
strength  of  the  puritans,  unphilosophical  as  they  were,  swept  it 
away.  One  feels  in  reading  the  later  Neoplatonists,  Henry 
More,  Smith,  even  Cudworth,  (valuable  as  he  is,)  that  the  old 
accursed  distinction  between  the  philosopher,  the  scholar,  the  illu 
minate,  and  the  plain  righteous  man,  was  growing  up  again  very 
fast.  The  school  from  which  the  Reliyio  Medici  issued,  was  not 
likely  to  make  any  bad  men  good,  or  any  foolish  men  wise. 

Besides,  as  long  as  me,n  were  continuing  to  quote  poor  old 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.          379 

Proclus  as  an  irrefragable  authority,  and  believing  that  he,  for 
sooth,  represented  the  sense  of  Plato,  the  new-born  Baconian 
Philosophy  had  but  little  chance  in  the  world.  Bacon  had  been 
right  years  before  in  his  dislike  of  Platonism,  though  he  was 
unjust  to  Plato  himself.  It  was  Proclus  whom  he  was  really 
reviling ;  Proclus  as  Plato's  commentator  and  representative. 
The  lion  had  for  once  got  into  the  ass's  skin,  and  was  treated 
accordingly.  The  true  Platonic  method,  that  dialectic  which  the 
Alexandrians  gradually  abandoned,  remains  yet  to  be  tried,  both 
in  England  and  in  Germany ;  and  I  am  much  mistaken,  if, 
when  fairly  used,  it  be  not  found  the  ally,  not  the  enemy,  of  the 
Baconian  philosophy  ;  in  fact,  the  inductive  method  applied  to 
words,  as  the  expressions  of  Metaphysic  Laws,  instead  of  to 
natural  phenomena,  as  the  expressions  of  Physical  ones.  If  you 
wish  to  see  the  highest  instances  of  this  method,  read  Plato  him 
self,  not  Proclus.  If  you  wish  to  see  how  the  same  method  can 
be  applied  to  Christian  truth,  read  the  dialectic  passages  in 
Augustine's  Confessions.  Whether  or  not  you  shall  agree  with 
their  conclusions,  you  will  not  be  likely,  if  you  have  a  truly  sci 
entific  habit  of  mind,  to  complain  that  they  want  either  pro 
fundity,  severity,  or  simplicity. 

So  concludes  the  history  of  one  of  the  Alexandrian  schools  of 
Metaphysic.  What  was  the  fate  of  the  other  is  a  subject  which 
I  must  postpone  to  my  next  Lecture. 


LECTURE   IV. 

THE  CROSS  AND  THE  CRESCENT. 

I  TRIED  to  point  out,  in  my  last  Lecture,  the  causes  which  led 
to  the  decay  of  the  Pagan  metaphysic  of  Alexandria.  We  have 
now  to  consider  the  fate  of  the  Christian  school. 

You  may  have  remarked  that  I  have  said  little  or  nothing 
about  the  positive  dogmas  of  Clement,  Origen,  and  their  disci 
ples  :  but  have  only  brought  out  the  especial  points  of  departure 
between  them  and  the  Heathens.  My  reason  for  so  doing  was 
twofold :  first,  I  could  not  have  examined  them  without  entering 
on  controversial  ground ;  next,  I  am  very  desirous  to  excite  some 
of  my  hearers,  at  least,  to  examine  these  questions  for  them 
selves. 

I  entreat  them  not  to  listen  to  the  hasty  sneer  to  which  many 
of  late  have  given  way,  that  the  Alexandrian  divines  were  mere 


380  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

mystics,  who  corrupted  Christianity  by  an  admixture  of  Oriental 
and  Greek  thought.  My  own  belief  is  that  they  expanded  and 
corroborated  Christianity,  in  spite  of  great  errors  and  defects  on 
certain  points,  far  more  than  they  corrupted  it ;  that  they  pre 
sented  it  to  the  minds  of  cultivated  and  scientific  men  in  the  only 
form  in  which  it  would  have  satisfied  their  philosophic  aspira 
tions,  and  yet  contrived,  with  wonderful  wisdom,  to  ground  their 
philosophy  on  the  very  same  truths  which  they  taught  to  the 
meanest  slaves,  and  to  appeal  in  the  philosophers  to  the  same 
inward  faculty  to  which  they  appealed  in  the  slave  ;  namely,  to 
that  inward  eye,  that  moral  sense  and  reason,  whereby  each  and 
every  man  can,  if  he  will,  "judge  of  himself  that- which  is  right." 
I  boldly  say  that  I  believe  the  Alexandrian  Christians  to  have 
made  the  best,  perhaps  the  only,  attempt  yet  made  by  men,  to 
proclaim  a  true  world-philosophy  ;  whereby  I  mean  a  philosophy 
common  to  all  races,  ranks,  and  intellects,  embracing  the  whole 
phenomena  of  humanity,  and  not  an 'arbitrarily  small  portion  of 
them,  and  capable  of  being  understood  and  appreciated  by  every 
human  being  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest.  And  when  you 
hear  of  a  system  of  reserve  in  teaching,  a  disciplina  arcani,  of 
an  esoteric  and  exoteric,  an  inner  and  outer  school,  among  these 
men,  you  must  not  be  frightened  at  the  words,  as  if  they  spoke 
of  priestcraft,  or  an  intellectual  aristocracy,  who  kept  the  kernel 
of  the  nut  for  themselves,  and  gave  the  husks  to  the  mob.  It 
was  not  so  with  the  Christian  schools ;  it  was  so  with  the  Hea 
then  ones.  The  Heathens  were  content  that  the  mob,  the  herd, 
should  have  the  husks.  Their  avowed  intention  and  wish  was 
to  leave  the  herd,  as  they  called  them,  in  the  mere  outward 
observance  of  the  old  idolatries,  while  they  themselves,  the  culti 
vated  philosophers,  had  the  monopoly  of  those  deeper  spiritual 
truths  which  were  contained  under  the  old  superstitions,  and 
were  too  sacred  to  be  profaned  by  the  vulgar  eyes.  The  Chris 
tian  method  was  the  exact  opposite.  They  boldly  called  those 
vulgar  eyes  to  enter  into  the  very  holy  of  holies,  and  there  gaze 
on  the  very  deepest  root-ideas  of  their  philosophy.  They  owned 
no  ground  for  their  own  speculations  which  was  not  common  to 
the  harlots  and  the  slaves  around.  And  this  was  what  enabled 
them  to  do  this  ;  this  was  what  brought  on  them  the  charge  of 
demagogism,  the  hatred  of  philosophers,  the  persecution  of  prin 
ces  ; — that  their  ground  was  a  moral  ground,  and  not  a  merely 
intellectual  one  ;  that  they  started,  not  from  any  notions  of  the 
understanding,  but  from  the  inward  conscience,  that  truly  pure 
Reason  in  which  the  intellectual  and  the  moral  spheres  are  united, 
which  they  believed  to  exist,  however  dimmed  or  crushed,  in 
every  human  being,  capable  of  being  awakened,  purified,  and 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.          381 

raised  up  to  a  noble  and  heroic  life.  They  concealed  nothing 
moral  from  their  disciples  :  only  they  forbade  them  to  meddle 
with  intellectual  matters,  before  they  had  had  a  regular  intellec 
tual  training.  The  witnesses  of  reason  and  conscience  were  suf 
ficient  guides  for  all  men,  and  at  them  the  many  might  well  stop 
short.  The  teacher  only  needed  to  proceed  further,  not  into  a 
higher  region,  but  into  a  lower  one,  namely,  into  the  region  of 
the  logical  understanding,  and  there  make  deductions  from,  and 
illustrations  of,  those  higher  truths  which  he  held  in  common  with 
every  slave,  and  held  on  the  same  ground  as  they. 

And  the  consequence  of  this  method  of  philosophizing  was 
patent.  They  were  enabled  to  produce,  in  the  lives  of  millions, 
generation  after  generation,  a  more  immense  moral  improvement 
than  the  world  had  ever  seen  before.  Their  disciples  did  actu 
ally  become  righteous  and  good  men,  just  in  proportion  as  they 
were  true  to  the  lessons  they  learnt.  They  did,  for  centuries, 
work  a  distinct  and  palpable  deliverance  on  the  earth  ;  while  all 
the  solemn  and  earnest  meditation  of  the  Neoplatonists,  however 
good  or  true,  worked  no  deliverance  whatsoever.  Plotinus  longed 
at  one  time  to  make  a  practical  attempt.  He  asked  the  Emperor 
Gallienus,  his  patron,  to  rebuild  for  him  a  city  in  Campania  ; 
to  allow  him  to  call  it  Platonopolis,  and  put  it  into  the  hands  of 
him  and  his  disciples,  that  they  might  there  realize  Plato's  ideal 
republic.  Luckily  for  the  reputation  of  Neoplatonism,  the  scheme 
was  swamped  by  the  courtiers  of  Gallienus,  and  the  earth  was 
saved  the  sad  and  ludicrous  sight  of  a  realized  Laputa ;  probably 
a  very  quarrelsome  one.  That  was  his  highest  practical  concep 
tion  :  the  foundation  of  a  new  society :  not  the  regeneration  of 
society  as  it  existed. 

That  work  was  left  for  the  Christian  schools ;  and  up  to  a  cer 
tain  point  they  performed  it.  They  made  men  good.  This  was 
the  test,  which  of  the  schools  was  in  the  right :  this  was  the  test, 
which  of  the  two  had  hold  of  the  eternal  roots  of  metaphysic. 
Cicero  says,  that  he  had  learnt  more  philosophy  from  the  Laws 
of  the  Twelve  Tables  than  from  all  the  Greeks.  Clemens  and 
his  school  might  have  said  the  same  of  the  Hebrew  Ten  Com 
mandments  and  Jewish  Law,  which  are  so  marvellously  analo 
gous  to  the  old  Roman  laws  founded,  as  they  are,  on  the  belief 
in  a  Supreme  Being,  a  Jupiter — literally  a  Heavenly  Father — 
who  is  the  source  and  the  sanction  of  law ;  of  whose  justice  man's 
justice  is  the  pattern  ;  who  is  the  avenger  of  crimes  against  mar 
riage,  property,  life  ;  on  whom  depends  the  sanctity  of  an  oath. 
And  so,  to  compare  great  things  with  small,  there  was  a  truly 
practical  human  element  here  in  the  Christian  teaching  ;  purely 
ethical  and  metaphysical,  and  yet  palpable  to  the  simplest  and 


382  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

lowest,  which  gave  to  it  a  regenerating  force  which  the  highest 
efforts  of  Neoplatonism  could  never  attain. 

And  yet  Alexandrian  Christianity,  notoriously  enough,  rotted 
away,  and  perished  hideously.  Most  true.  But  what  if  the 
causes  of  its  decay  and  death  were  owing  to  its  being  untrue  to 
itself? 

I  do  not  say  that  they  had  no  excuses  for  being  untrue  to  their 
own  faith.  We  are  not  here  to  judge  them.  That  peculiar 
subtlety  of  mind,  which  rendered  the  Alexandrians  the  great 
thinkers  of  the  then  world,  had  with  Christians,  as  well  as  Hea 
thens,  the  effect  of  alluring  them  away  from  practice  to  specula 
tion.  The  Christian  school,  as  was  to  be  expected  from  the 
moral  ground  of  their  philosophy,  yielded  to  it  far  more  slowly 
than  the  Heathen,  but  they  did  yield,  and  especially  after  they 
had  conquered  and  expelled  the  Heathen  school.  Moreover, 
the  long  battle  with  the  Heathen  school  had  stirred  up  in  them 
habits  of  exclusiveness,  of  denunciation  ;  the  spirit  which  cannot 
assert  a  fact  without  dogmatizing  rashly  and  harshly  on  the  conse 
quences  of  denying  that  fact.  Their  minds  assumed  a  permanent 
habit  of  combativeness.  Having  no  more  Heathens  to  fight,  they 
began  fighting  each  other,  excommunicating  each  other  ;  denying 
to  all  who  differed  from  them  any  share  of  that  light,  to  claim  which 
for  all  men  had  been  the  very  ground  of  their  philosophy.  Not 
that  they  would  have  refused  the  Logos  to  all  men  in  words. 
They  would  have  cursed  a  man  for  denying  the  existence  of  the 
Logos  in  every  man  ;  but  they  would  have  equally  cursed  him 
for  acting  on  his  existence  in  practice,  and  treating  the  heretic 
as  one  who  had  that  within  him  to  which  a  preacher  might  ap 
peal.  Thus  they  became  Dogmatists  ;  that  is,  men  who  assert  a 
truth  so  fiercely,  as  to  forget  that  a  truth  is  meant  to  be  used,  and 
not  merely  asserted — if,  indeed,  the  fierce  assertion  of  a  truth  in 
frail  man  is  not  generally  a  sign  of  some  secret  doubt  of  it,  and  in 
inverse  proportion  to  his  practical  living  faith  in  it :  just  as  he  wMo 
is  always  telling  you  that  he  is  a  man,  is  not  the  most  likely  to 
behave  like  a  man.  And  why  did  this  befall  them  ?  Because 
they  forgot  practically  that  the  light  proceeded  from  a  Person. 
They  could  argue  over  notions  and  dogmas  deduced  from  the 
notion  of  his  personality :  but  they  were  shut  up  in  those  notions ; 
they  had  forgotten  that  if  He  was  a  Person,  his  eye  was  on  them, 
his  rule  and  kingdom  within  them  ;  and  that  if  He  was  a  Per 
son,  He  had  a  character,  and  that  that  character  was  a  righteous 
and  a  loving  character ;  and  therefore  they  were  not  ashamed,  in 
defending  these  notions  and  dogmas  about  Him,  to  commit  acts 
abhorrent  to  his  character,  to  lie,  to  slander,  to  intrigue,  to  hate, 
even  to  murder,  for  the  sake  of  what  they  madly  called  his 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.         383 

glory :  but  which  was  really  only  their  own  glory, — the  glory  of  their 
own  dogmas  ;  of  propositions  and  conclusions  in  their  own  brain, 
which,  true  or  false,  were  equally  heretical  in  their  mouths, 
because  they  used  them  only  as  watchwords  of  division.  Ortho 
dox  or  unorthodox,  they  lost  the  knowledge  of  God,  for  they  lost 
the  knowledge  of  righteousness,  and  love,  and  peace.  That  Di 
vine  Logos,  and  theology  as  a  whole,  receded  further  and  fur 
ther  aloft  into  abysmal  heights,  as  it  became  a  mere  dreary  sys 
tem  of  dead  scientific  terms,  having  no  practical  bearing  on  their 
hearts  and  lives  ;  and  then  they,  as  the  Neoplatonists  had  done 
before  them,  filled  up  the  void  by  those  dasmonologies,  images, 
base  Fetish  worships,  which  made  the  Mohammedan  invaders 
regard  them,  and  I  believe  justly,  as  polytheists  and  idolaters, 
base  as  the  pagan  Arabs  of  the  desert. 

I  cannot  but  believe  them,  moreover,  to  have  been  untrue  to 
the  teaching  of  Clement  and  his  school,  in  that  coarse  and  mate 
rialist  admiration  of  celibacy  which  ruined  Alexandrian  society, 
as  their  dogmatic  ferocity  ruined  Alexandrian  thought.  The 
Creed  which  taught  them  that  in  the  person  of  the  Incarnate 
Logos,  that  which  was  most  divine  had  been  proved  to  be  most 
human,  that  which  was  most  human  had  been  proved  to  be  most 
divine,  ought  surely  to  have  given  to  them,  as  it  has  given  to 
modern  Europe,  nobler,  clearer,  simpler  views  of  the  true  rela 
tion  of  the  sexes.  However,  on  this  matter  they  did  not  see 
their  way.  Perhaps,  in  so  debased  an  age,  so  profligate  a  world, 
as  that  out  of  which  Christianity  had  risen,  it  was  impossible  to 
see  the  true  beauty  and  sanctity  of  those  primary  bonds  of  hu 
manity.  And  while  the  relation  of  the  sexes  was  looked  on  in  a 
wrong  light,  all  other  social  relations  were  necessarily  also  mis 
conceived.  "  The  very  ideas  of  family  and  national  life,"  as  it 
has  been  said,  "  those  two  divine  roots  of  the  Church,  severed 
from  which  she  is  certain  to  wither  away  into  that  most  cruel 
and  most  godless  of  spectres,  a  religious  world,  had  perished  in 
the  East,  from  the  evil  influence  of  the  universal  practice  of 
slave-holding,  as  well  as  from  the  degradation  of  that  Jewish 
nation  which  had  been  for  ages  the  great  witness  for  these  ideas ; 
and  all  classes,  like  their  forefather  Adam — like,  indeed,  the  Old 
Adam — the  selfish,  cowardly,  brute  nature  in  every  man  and  in 
every  age — were  shifting  the  blame  of  sin  from  their  own  con 
sciences  to  human  relationships  and  duties,  and  therein,  to  the 
God  who  had  appointed  them  ;  and  saying,  as  of  old,  '  The 
woman  whom  Thou  gavest  to  be  with  me,  she  gave  me.  of  the 
tree,  and  I  did  eat.'  " 

Much  as  Christianity  did,  even  in  Egypt,  for  woman,  by  assert 
ing  her  moral  and  spiritual  equality  with  the  man,  there  seems 


384  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

to  have  been  no  suspicion  that  she  was  the  true  complement  of 
the  man,  not  merely  by  softening  him,  but  by  strengthening  him ; 
that  true  manhood  can  be  no  more  developed  without  the  influ 
ence  of  the  woman,  than  true  womanhood  without  the  influence 
of  the  man.  There  is  no  trace  among  the  Egyptian  celibates  of 
that  chivalrous  woman-worship  which  our  Gothic  forefathers 
brought  with  them  into  the  West,  which  shed  a  softening  and 
ennobling  light  round  the  mediaeval  convent-life,  and  warded  off* 
for  centuries  the  worst  effects  of  monasticism.  Among  the  reli 
gious  of  Egypt,  the  monk  regarded  the  nun,  the  nun  the  monk, 
with  dread  and  aversion ;  while  both  looked  on  the  married  popu 
lation  of  the  opposite  sex  with  a  coarse  contempt  and  disgust 
which  is  hardly  credible,  did  not  the  foul  records  of  it  stand 
written  to  this  day,  in  Rosweyde's  extraordinary  Vitce  Patrum 
Eremitlcorum ;  no  barren  school  of  metaphysic,  truly,  for  those 
who  are  philosophic  enough  to  believe  that  all  phenomena  what 
soever  of  the  human  mind  are  worthy  matter  for  scientific 
induction. 

And  thus  grew  up  in  Egypt  a  monastic  world,  of  such  vastness 
that  it  was  said  to  equal  in  number  the  laity.  This  produced, 
no  doubt,  an  enormous  increase  in  the  actual  amount  of  moral 
evil.  But  it  produced  three  other  effects,  which  were  the  ruin 
of  Alexandria.  First,  a  continually  growing  enervation  and  nu 
merical  decrease  of  the  population  ;  next,  a  carelessness  of,  and 
contempt  for,  social  and  political  life  !  and  lastly,  a  most  brutal 
izing  effect  on  the  lay  population ;  who,  told  that  they  were,  and 
believing  themselves  to  be,  beings  of  a  lower  order,  and  living 
by  a  lower  standard,  sank  down  more  and  more  generation  after 
generation.  They  were  of  the  world,  and  the  ways  of  the  world 
they  must  follow.  Political  life  had  no  inherent  sanctity  or 
nobleness  ;  why  act  holily  and  nobly  in  it  ?  Family  life  had  no 
inherent  sanctity  or  nobleness  ;  why  act  holily  and  nobly  in  it, 
either,  if  there  were  no  holy,  noble,  and  divine  principle  or 
ground  for  it  ?  And  thus  grew  up,  both  in  Egypt,  Syria,  and 
Byzantium,  a  chaos  of  profligacy  and  chicanery,  in  rulers  and 
people,  in  the  home  and  the  market,  in  the  theatre  and  the 
senate,  such  as  the  world  has  rarely  seen  before  or  since ;  a 
chaos  which  reached  its  culmination  in  the  seventh  century, 
the  age  of  Justinian  and  Theodora,  perhaps  the  two  most  hideous 
sovereigns,  worshipped  by  the  most  hideous  empire  of  parasites 
and  hypocrites,  cowards  and  wantons,  that  ever  insulted  the 
long-suffering  of  a  righteous  God. 

But,  for  Alexandria  at  least,  the  cup  was  now  full.  In  the 
year  640  the  Alexandrians  were  tearing  each  other  in  pieces 
about  some  Jacobite  and  Melchite  controversy,  to  me  incompre- 


ALEXANDKIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.         385 

hensible,  to  you  unimportant,  because  the  fighters  on  both  sides 
seem  to  have  lost  (as  all  parties  do  in  their  old  age)  the  knowl 
edge  of  what  they  were  fighting  for,  and  to  have  so  bewildered 
the  question  with  personal  intrigues,  spites,  and  quarrels,  as  to 
make  it  nearly  as  enigmatic  as  that  famous  contemporary  war 
between  the  blue  and  green  factions  at  Constantinople,  which 
began  by  backing  in  the  theatre,  the  charioteers  who  drove  in 
blue  dresses,  against  those  who  drove  in  green  ;  then  went  on  to 
identify  themselves  each  with  one  of  the  prevailing  theological 
factions  ;  gradually  developed,  the  one  into  an  aristocratic,  the 
other  into  a  democratic,  religious  party ;  and  ended  by  a  civil 
war  in  the  streets  of  Constantinople,  accompanied  by  the  most 
horrible  excesses,  which  had  nearly,  at  one  time,  given  up  the 
city  to  the  flames,  and  driven  Justinian  from  his  throne. 

In  the  midst  of  these  Jacobite  and  Melchite  controversies  and 
riots,  appeared  before  the  city  the  armies  of  certain  wild  and 
unlettered  Arab  tribes.  A  short  and  fruitless  struggle  followed ; 
and,  strange  to  say,  a  few  months  swept  away  from  the  face  of 
the  earth,  not  only  the  wealth,  the  commerce,  the  castles,  and  the 
liberty,  but  the  philosophy  and  the  Christianity  of  Alexandria ; 
crushed  to  powder,  by  one  fearful  blow,  all  that  had  been  built 
up  by  Alexander  and  the  Ptolemies,  by  Clement  and  the  philoso 
phers,  and  made  void,  to  all  appearance,  nine  hundred  years  of 
human  toil.  The  people,  having  no  real  hold  on  their  hereditary 
creed,  accepted,  by  tens  of  thousands,  that  of  the  Mussulman 
invaders.  The  Christian  remnant  became  tributaries  ;  and 
Alexandria  dwindled  from  that  time  forth,  into  a  petty  sea-port 
town. 

And  now — can  we  pass  over. this  new  metaphysical  school  of 
Alexandria  ?  Can  we  help  inquiring,  in  what  the  strength  of 
Islamism  lay  ?  I,  at  least,  cannot.  I  cannot  help  feeling  that  I 
am  bound  to  examine  in  what  relation  the  creed  of  Omar  and 
Amrou  stands  to  the  Alexandrian  speculations  of  five  hundred 
years,  and  how  it  had  power  to  sweep  those  speculations  utterly 
from  the  Eastern  mind.  It  is  a  difficult  problem ;  to  me,  as  a 
Christian  priest,  a  very  awful  problem.  What  more  awful  historic 
problem,  than  to  see  the  lower  creed  destroying  the  higher  ?  to 
see  God,  as  it  were,  undoing  his  own  work,  and  repenting  him 
that  he  had  made  man  ?  Awful  indeed :  but  I  can  honestly  say, 
that  it  is  one  from  the  investigation  of  which  I  have  learnt — I 
cannot  yet  tell  how  much  :  and  of  this  I  am  sure,  that  without 
that  old  Alexandrian  philosophy,  I  should  not  have  been  able  to 
do  justice  to  Islam ;  without  Islam  I  should  not  have  been  able 
to  mid  in  that  Alexandrian  philosophy,  an  ever-living  and  prac 
tical  element. 

17 


386  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

I  must,  however,  first  entreat  you  to  dismiss  from  your  minds 
the  vulgar  notion  that  Mohammed  was  in  anywise  a  bad  man,  or 
a  conscious  deceiver,  pretending  to  work  miracles,  or  to  do  things 
which  he  did  not  do.  He  sinned  in  one  instance  :  but,  as  far  as 
I  can  see,  only  in  that  one — I  mean  against  what  he  must  have 
known  to  be  right.  I  allude  to  his  relaxing  in  his  own  case  those 
wise  restrictions  on  polygamy  which  he  had  proclaimed.  And 
yet,  even  in  this  case,  the  desire  for  a  child  may  have  been  the 
true  cause  of  his  weakness.  He  did  not  see  the  whole  truth,  of 
course  :  but  he  was  an  infinitely  better  man  than  the  men  around ; 
perhaps,  all  in  all,  one  of  the  best  men  of  his  day.  Many  here 
may  have  read  Mr.  Carlyle's  vindication  of  Mohammed  in  his 
Lectures  on  Hero  Worship  ;  to  those  who  have  not,  I  shall  only 
say,  that  I  entreat  them  to  do  so ;  and  that  I  assure  them,  that 
though  I  differ  in  many  things  utterly  from  Mr.  Carlyle's  infer 
ences  and  deductions  in  that  lecture,  yet  that  I  am  convinced, 
from  my  own  acquaintance  with  the  original  facts  and  documents, 
that  the  picture  there  drawn  of  Mohammed  is  a  true  and  a  just 
description  of  a  much  calumniated  man. 

Now,  what  was  the  strength  of  Islam  ?  The  common  answer 
is,  fanaticism  and  enthusiasm.  To  such  answers  I  can  only 
rejoin :  Such  terms  must  be  defined  before  they  are  used,  and 
we  must  be  told  what  fanaticism  and  enthusiasm  are.  Till  then 
I  have  no  more  a  priori  respect  for  a  long  word  ending  in  -ism 
or  -asm  than  I  have  for  one  ending  in  -ation  or  -ality.  But  while 
fanaticism  and  enthusiasm  are  being  defined — a  work  more  diffi 
cult  than  is  commonly  fancied — we  will  go  on  to  consider  another 
answer.  We  are  told  that  the  strength  of  Islam  lay  in  the  hope 
of  their  sensuous  Paradise  and  iiear  of  their  sensuous  Gehenna. 
If  so,  this  is  the  first  and  last  time  in  the  world's  history  that  the 
strength  of  any  large  body  of  people — perhaps  of  any  single  man 
— lay  in  such  a  hope.  History  gives  us  innumerable  proofs  that 
such  merely  selfish  motives  are  the  parents  of  slavish  impotence, 
of  pedantry  and  conceit,  of  pious  frauds,  often  of  the  most  devilish 
cruelty :  but,  as  far  as  my  reading  extends,  of  nothing  better. 
Moreover,  the  Christian  Greeks  had  much  the  same  hopes  on 
those  points  as  the  Mussulmans ;  and  similar  causes  should  pro 
duce  similar  effects :  but  those  hopes  gave  them  no  strength. 
Besides,  according  to  the  Mussulmen's  own  account,  this  was  not 
their  great  inspiring  idea ;  and  it  is  absurd  to  consider  the  wild 
battle-cries  of  a  few  imaginative  youths,  about  black-eyed  and 
green-kerchiefed  ITouris  calling  to  them  from  the  skies,  as  rep 
resenting  the  average  feelings  of  a  generation  of  sober  and  self- 
restraining  men,  who  showed  themselves  actuated  by  far  higher 
motives. 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.         387 

Another  answer,  and  one  very  popular  now,  is  that  the  Mus 
sulmans  -were  strong,  because  they  believed  what  they  said  ;  and 
the  Greeks  weak,  because  they  did  not  believe  what  they  said. 
From  this  notion  I  shall  appeal  to  another  doctrine  of  the  very 
same  men  who  put  it  forth,  and  ask  them,  Can  any  man  be  strong 
by  believing  a  lie  ?  Have  you  not  told  us,  nobly  enough,  that 
every  lie  is  by  its  nature  rotten,  doomed  to  death,  certain  to 
prove  its  own  impotence,  and  be  shattered  to  atoms  the  moment 
you  try  to  use  it,  to  bring  it  into  rude  actual  contact  with  fact, 
and  Nature,  and  the  eternal  laws  ?  Faith,  to  be  strong,  must  be 
faith  in  something  which  is  not  one's  self;  faith  in  something 
eternal,  something  objective,  something  true,  which  would  exist 
just  as  much  though  we  and  all  the  world  disbelieved  it.  The 
strength  of  belief  comes  from  that  which  is  believed  in  ;  if  you 
separate  it  from  that,  it  becomes  a  mere  self-opinion,  a  sensation 
of  positiveness  ;  and  what  sort  of  strength  that  will  give  history 
will  tell  us  in  the  tragedies  of  the  Jews  who  opposed  Titus,  of 
the  rabble  who  followed  Walter  the  Penniless  to  the  Crusades,  of 
the  Munster  Anabaptists,  and  many  another  sad  page  of  human 
folly.  It  may  give  the  fury  of  idiots  ;  not  the  deliberate  might 
of  valiant  men.  Let  us  pass  this  by,  then  ;  believing  that  faith 
can  only  give  strength  where  it  is  faith  in  something  true  and 
right :  and  go  on  to  another  answer  almost  as  popular  as  the  last. 

We  are  told  that  the  might  of  Islam  lay  in  a  certain  innate 
force  and  savage  virtue  of  the  Arab  character.  If  we  have  dis 
covered  this  in  the  followers  of  Mohammed,  they  certainly  had 
not  discovered  it  in  themselves.  They  spoke  of  themselves, 
rightly  or  wrongly,  as  men  who  had  received  a  divine  light,  and 
that  light  a  moral  light,  to  teach  them  to  love  that  which  was 
good,  and  refuse  that  which  was  evil ;  and  to  that  divine  light, 
they  steadfastly  and  honestly  attributed  every  right  action  of 
their  lives.  Most  noble  and  affecting,  in  my  eyes,  is  that  answer 
of  Saad's  aged  envoy  to  Yezdegird,  King  of  Persia,  when  he 
reproached  him  with  the  past  savagery  and  poverty  of  the  Arabs. 
"  Whatsoever  thou  hast  said,"  answered  the  old  man,  "  regard 
ing  the  former  condition  of  the  Arabs  is  true.  Their  food  ivas 
green  lizards;  they  buried  their  infant  daughters  alive;  nay, 
some  of  them  feasted  on  dead  carcases,  and  drank  blood  ;  while 
others  slew  their  kinsfolk,  and  thought  themselves  great  and  vali 
ant,  when  by  so  doing,  they  became  possessed  of  more  property. 
Tli^y  were  clothed  with  hair  garments,  they  knew  not  good  from 
evil,  and  made  no  distinction  between  that  which  was  lawful  and 
unlawful.  Such  was  our  state  ;  but  God  in  his  mercy  has  sent 
us,  by  a  holy  prophet,  a  sacred  volume,  which  teaches  us  the 
true  faith." 


388  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

These  words,  I  think,  show  us  the  secret  of  Islam.  They  are  a 
just  comment  on  that  short  and  rugged  chapter  of  the  Koran  which 
is  said  to  have  been  Mohammed's  first  attempt  either  at  prophecy 
or  writing  ;  when,  after  long  fasting  and  meditation  among  the 
desert  hills,  under  the  glorious  eastern  stars,  he  came  down  and 
told  his  good  Kadijah  that  he  had  found  a  great  thing,  and  that 
she  must  help  him  to  write  it  down.  And  what  was  this  which 
seemed  to  the  unlettered  camel-driver  so  priceless  a  treasure  ? 
Not  merely  that  God  was  one  God — vast  as  that  discovery  was 
— but  that  he  was  a  God  "  who  showeth  to  man  the  thing  which 
he  knew  not ; "  a  "  most  merciful  God ;  "  a  God,  in  a  word,  who 
could  be  trusted  ;  a  God  who  would  teach  and  strengthen  ;  a 
God,  as  he  said,  who  would  give  him  courage  to  set  his  face  like 
a  flint,  and  would  put  an  answer  in  his  mouth  when  his  idolatrous 
countrymen  cavilled  and  sneered  at  his  message  to  them,  to  turn 
to  from  their  idols  of  wood  and  stone,  and  become  righteous  men, 
as  Abraham  their  forefather  was  righteous. 

"A  God  who  showeth  to  man  the  thing  which  he  knew  not." 
That  idea  gave  might  to  Islam,  because  it  was  a  real  idea,  an 
eternal  fact ;  the  result  of  a  true  insight  into  the  character  of 
God.  And  that  idea  alone,  believe  me,  will  give  conquering 
might  either  to  creed,  philosophy,  or  heart  of  man.  Each  will 
be  strong,  each  will  endure,  in  proportion  as  it  believes  that  God 
is  one  who  shows  to  man  the  thing  which  he  knew  not :  as  it 
believes,  in  short,  in  that  Logos  of  which  Saint  John  wrote,  that 
He  was  the  light  who  lightens  every  man  who  comes  into  the 
world. 

In  a  word,  the  wild  Koreish  had  discovered,  more  or  less 
clearly,  that  end  and  object  of  all  metaphysic  whereof  I  have 
already  spoken  so  often ;  that  external  and  imperishable  beauty 
for  which  Plato  sought  of  old  ;  and  had  seen  that  its  name  was 
righteousness,  and  that  it  dwelt  absolutely  in  an  absolutely  righte 
ous  person  ;  and  moreover,  that  this  person  was  no  careless  self- 
contented  epicurean  deity ;  but  that  he  was,  as  they  loved  to  call 
him,  the  most  merciful  God ;  that  he  cared  for  men  ;  that  he 
desired  to  make  men  righteous.  Of  that  they  could  not  doubt. 
The  fact  was  palpable,  historic,  present.  To  them  the  degraded 
Koreish  of  the  desert,  who  as  they  believed,  and  I  think  believed 
rightly,  had  fallen  from  the  old  Monotheism  of  their  forefathers 
Abraham  and  Ismael,  into  the  lowest  fetishism,  and  with  that 
into  the  lowest  brutality  and  wretchedness  ;  to  them — while  they 
were  making  idols  of  wood  and  stone  ;  eating  dead  carcases ;  and 
burying  their  daughters  alive ;  careless  of  chastity,  of  justice,  of 
property ;  sunk  in  unnatural  crimes,  dead  in  trespasses  and  sins ; 
hateful  and  hating  one  another — a  man,  one  of  their  own  people 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.  389 

had  come,  saying,  "  I  have  a  message  from  the  one  righteous 
God.  His  curse  is  on  all  this,  for  it  is  unlike  Himself.  He  will 
have  you  righteous  men,  after  the  pattern  of  your  forefather 
Abraham.  Be  that,  and  arise  body,  soul,  and  spirit,  out  of  your 
savagery  and  brutishness.  Then  you  shall  be  able  to  trample 
under  foot  the  profligate  idolaters,  to  sweep  the  Greek  tyrants 
from  the  land  which  they  have  been  oppressing  for  centuries,  and 
to  recover  the  East  for  its  rightful  heirs,  the  children  of  Abra 
ham."  Was  this  not,  in  every  sense,  a  message  from  God  ?  I 
must  deny  the  philosophy  of  Clement  and  Augustine ;  I  must 
deny  my  own  conscience,  my  own  reason  ;  I  must  outrage  my 
own  moral  sense,  and  confess  that  I  have  no  immutable  standard 
of  right,  that  I  know  no  eternal  source  of  right,  if  I  deny  it  to 
have  been  one  ;  if  I  deny  what  seems  to  me  the  palpable  historic 
fact,  that  those  wild  Koreish  had  in  them  a  reason  and  a  con 
science,  which  could  awaken  to  that  message,  and  perceive  its 
boundless  beauty,  its  boundless  importance,  and  that  they  did 
accept  that  message,  and  lived  by  it  in  proportion  as  they  re 
ceived  it  fully,  such  lives  as  no  men  in  those  times,  and  few  in 
after  times,  have  been  able  to  live.  If  1  feel,  as  I  do  feel,  that 
Abubekr,  Omar,  Abu  Obeidah,  and  Amrou,  were  better  men 
than  I  am,  I  must  throw  away  all  that  Philo — all  that  a  Higher 
authority — has  taught  me  :  or  I  must  attribute  their  lofty  virtues 
to  the  one  source  of  all  in  man  which  is  not  selfishness,  and 
fancy,  and  fury,  and  blindness  as  of  the  beasts  which  perish. 

Why,  then,  has  Islamism  become  one  of  the  most  patent  and 
complete  failures  upon  earth,  if  the  true  test  of  a  system's  suc 
cess  be  the  gradual  progress  and  amelioration  of  the  human 
beings  who  are  under  its  influence  ?  First,  I  believe,  from  its 
allowing  polygamy.  I  do  not  judge  Mohammed  for  having 
allowed  it.  He  found  it  one  of  the  ancestral  and  immemorial 
customs  of  his  nation.  He  found  it  throughout  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures.  He  found  it  in  the  case  of  Abraham,  his  ideal  man  ; 
and,  as  he  believed,  the  divinely  inspired  ancestor  of  his  race. 
It  seemed  to  him  that  what  was  right  for  Abraham,  could  not  be 
wrong  for  an  Arab.  God  shall  judge  him,  not  I.  Moreover, 
the  Christians  of  the  East,  divided  into  either  monks  or  profli 
gates,  and  with  far  lower  and  more  brutal  notions  of  the 
married  state  than  were  to  be  found  in  Arab  poetry  and  legend, 
were  the  very  last  men  on  earth  to  make  him  feel  the  eternal 
and  divine  beauty  of  that  pure  wedded  love  which  Christianity 
has  not  only  proclaimed,  but  commanded,  and  thereby  emanci 
pated  woman  from  her  old  slavery  to  the  stronger  sex.  And  I 
believe,  from  his  chivalrous  faithfulness  to  his  good  wife  Kadijah, 
as  long  as  she  lived,  that  Mohammed  was  a  man  who  could  have 


390  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

accepted  that  great  truth  in  all  its  fulness,  had  he  but  been 
taught  it.  He  certainly  felt  the  evil  of  polygamy  so  strongly  as 
to  restrict  it  in  every  possible  way,  except  the  only  right  way — 
namely,  the  proclamation  of  the  true  ideal  of  marriage.  But 
his  ignorance,  mistake,  sin,  if  you  will — was  a  deflection  from 
the  right  law,  from  the  true  constitution  of  man,  and  therefore  it 
avenged  itself.  That  chivalrous  respect  for  woman,  which  was 
so  strong  in  the  early  Mohammedans,  died  out.  The  women 
themselves — who,  in  the  first  few  years  of  Islamism,  rose  as  the 
men  rose,  and  became  their  helpmates,  counsellors,  and  fellow- 
warriors — degenerated  rapidly  into  mere  playthings.  I  need  not 
enter  into  the  painful  subject  of  woman's  present  position  in  the 
East,  and  the  social  consequences  thereof.  But  I  firmly  believe, 
not  merely  as  a  theory,  but  as  a  fact  which  may  be  proved  by 
abundant  evidence,  that  to  polygamy  alone  is  owing  nine  tenths  of 
the  present  decay  and  old  age  of  every  Mussulman  nation  ;  and 
that  till  it  be  utterly  abolished,  all  Western  civilization  and  capi 
tal,  and  all  the  civil  and  religious  liberty  on  earth,  will  not  avail 
one  jot  toward  their  revival.  You  must  regenerate  the  family 
before  you  can  regenerate  the  nation,  and  the  relation  of  husband 
and  wife  before  the  family ;  because,  as  long  as  the  root  is  cor 
rupt,  the  fruit  will  be  corrupt  also. 

But  there  is  another  cause  of  the  failure  of  Islamism,  more 
intimately  connected  with  those  metaphysical  questions  which  we 
have  been  hitherto  principally  considering. 

Among  the  first  Mussulmen,  as  I  have  said,  there  was  generally 
the  most  intense  belief  in  each  man  that  he  was  personally  under 
a  divine  guide  and  teacher.  But  their  creed  contained  nothing 
which  could  keep  up  that  belief  in  the  minds  of  succeeding  gene 
rations.  They  had  destroyed  the  good  with  the  evil,  and  they 
paid  the  penalty  of  their  undistinguishing  wrath.  In  sweeping 
away  the  idolatries  and  fetish  worships  of  the  Syrian  Catholics, 
the  Mussulmans  had  swept  away  also  that  doctrine  which  alone 
can  deliver  men  from  idolatry  and  fetish  worships — if  not  out 
ward  and  material  ones,  yet  the  still  more  subtle,  and  therefore 
more  dangerous  idolatries  of  the  intellect.  For  they  had  swept 
away  the  belief  in  the  Logos;  in  a  divine  teacher  of  every 
human  soul,  who  was,  in  some  mysterious  way,  the  pattern  and 
antitype  of  human  virtue  and  wisdom.  And  more,  they  had 
swept  away  that  belief  in  the  incarnation  of  the  Logos,  which 
alone  can  make  man  feel  that  his  divine  teacher  is  one  who  can 
enter  into  the  human  duties,  sorrows,  doubts,  of  each  human 
spirit.  And,  therefore,  when  Mohammed  and  his  personal  friends 
were  dead,  the  belief  in  a  present  divine  teacher,  on  the  whole, 
died  with  them  ;  and  the  Mussulmans  began  to  put  the  Koran  in 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER   SCHOOLS.  391 

the  place  of  Him  of  whom  the  Koran  spoke.  They  began  to 
worship  the  book — which  after  all  is  not  a  book,  but  only  an 
irregular  collection  of  Mohammed's  meditations,  and  notes  for 
sermons — with  the  most  slavish  and  ridiculous  idolatry.  They  fell 
into  a  cabbalism,  and  a  superstitious  reverence  for  the  mere  let 
ters  and  words  of  the  Koran,  to  which  the  cabbalism  of  the  old 
Rabbis  was  moderate  and  rational.  They  surrounded  it,  and  the 
history  of  Mohammed,  with  all  ridiculous  myths,  and  prodigies, 
and  lying  wonders,  whereof  the  book  itself  contained  not  a  word  ; 
and  which  Mohammed,  during  his  existence,  had  denied  and 
repudiated,  saying  that  he  worked  no  miracles,  and  that  none 
were  needed  ;  because  only  reason  was  required  to  show  a  man 
the  hand  of  a  good  God  in  all  human  affairs.  Nevertheless, 
these  later  Mussulmans  found  the  miracles  necessary  to  confirm 
their  faith :  and  why  ?  Because  they  had  lost  the  sense  of  a 
present  God,  a  God  of  order ;  and  therefore  hankered,  as  men 
in  such  a  mood  always  will,  after  prodigious  and  unnatural  proofs 
of  his  having  been  once  present  with  their  founder  Mohammed. 

And  in  the  meanwhile  that  absolute  and  omnipotent  Being 
whom  Mohammed,  arising  out  of  his  great  darkness,  had  so  nobly 
preached  to  the  Koreish,  receded  in  the  minds  of  their  descend 
ants  to  an  unapproachable  and  abysmal  distance.  For  they  had 
lost  the  sense  of  his  present  guidance,  his  personal  care.  They 
had  lost  all  which  could  connect  him  with  the  working  of  their 
own  souls,  with  their  human  duties  and  struggles,  with  the  belief 
that  his  mercy  and  love  were  counterparts  of  human  mercy  and 
human  love ;  in  plain  English,  that  he  was  loving  and  merciful 
at  all.  The  change  came  very  gradually,  thank  God  ;  you  may 
read  of  noble  sayings  and  deeds  here  and  there,  for  many  cen 
turies  after  Mohammed  ;  but  it  came  ;  and  then  their  belief  in 
God's  omnipotence  and  absoluteness  dwindled  into  the  most  dark, 
and  slavish,  and  benumbing  fatalism.  His  unchangeableness 
became  in  their  minds  not  an  unchangeable  purpose  to  teach, 
forgive  and  deliver  men — as  it  seemed  to  Mohammed  to  have 
been — but  a  mere  brute  necessity,  an  unchangeable  purpose  to 
have  his  own  way,  whatsoever  that  way  might  be.  That  dark 
fatalism,  also,  has  helped  toward  the  decay  of  the  Mohammedan 
nations.  It  has  made  them  careless  of  self-improvement,  faith 
less  in  the  possibility  of  progress ;  and  has  kept,  and  will  keep, 
the  Mohammedan  nations,  in  all  intellectual  matters,  whole  ages 
behind  the  Christian  nations  of  the  West. 

How  far  the  story  of  Omar's  commanding  the  baths  of  Alex 
andria  to  be  heated  with  the  books  from  the  great  library  is  true, 
we  shall  never  know.  Some  have  doubted  the  story  altogether : 
but  so  many  fresh  corroborations  of  it  are  said  to  have  been 


392  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

lately  discovered,  in  Arabic  writers,  that  I  can  hardly  doubt  that 
it  had  some  foundation  in  fact.  One  cannot  but  believe  that  John 
Philoponus,  the  last  of  the  Alexandrian  grammarians,  when  he 
asked  his  patron  Amrou  the  gift  of  the  library,  took  care  to  save 
some,  at  least,  of  its  treasures  ;  and  howsoever  strongly  Omar 
may  have  felt  or  said  that  all  books  which  agreed  with  the  Koran 
were  useless,  and  all  which  disagreed  with  it  only  fit  to  be  des 
troyed,  the  general  feeling  of  the  Mohammedan  leaders  was  very 
different.  As  they  settled  in  the  various  countries  which  they 
conquered,  education  seems  to  have  been  considered  by  them  an 
important  object.  We  even  find  some  of  them,  in  the  same  gen 
eration  as  Mohammed,  obeying  strictly  the  Prophet's  command 
to  send  all  captive  children  to  school — a  fact  which  speaks  as 
well  for  the  Mussulmen's  good  sense,  as  it  speaks  ill  for  the  state 
of  education  among  the  degraded  descendants  of  the  Greek  con 
querors  of  the  East.  Gradually  philosophic  schools  arose,  first 
at  Bagdad,  and  then  at  Cordova ;  and  the  Arabs  carried  on  the 
task  of  commenting  on  Aristotle's  Logic,  and  Ptolemy's  Megiste, 
Syntaxis — which  last  acquired  from  them  the  name  of  Almagest, 
by  which  it  was  so  long  known  during  the  Middle  Ages. 

But  they  did  little  but  comment,  though  there  was  no  Neopla- 
tonic  or  mystic  element  in  their  commentaries.  It  seems  as  if 
Alexandria  was  preordained,  by  its  very  central  position,  to  be 
the  city  of  commentators,  not  of  originators.  It  is  worthy  of 
remark,  that  Philoponus,  who  may  be  considered  as  the  man  who 
first  introduced  the  simple  warriors  of  the  Koreish  to  the  treas 
ures  of  Greek  thought,  seems  to  have  been  the  first  rebel  against 
the  Neoplatonist  eclecticism.  He  maintained,  and  truly,  that 
Porphyry,  Proclus,  and  the  rest,  had  entirely  misunderstood 
Aristotle,  when  they  attempted  to  reconcile  him  with  Plato,  or 
incorporate  his  philosophy  into  Platonism.  Aristotle  was  hence 
forth  the  text-book  of  Arab  savans.  It  was  natural  enough. 
The  Mussulman  mind  was  trained  in  habits  of  absolute  obedience 
to  the  authority  of  fixed  dogmas.  All  those  attempts  to  follow 
out  metaphysic  to  its  highest  object,  theology,  would  be  useless  if 
not  wrong  in  the  eyes  of  a  Mussulman,  who  had  already  his 
simple  and  sharply  defined  creed  on  all  matters  relating  to  the 
unseen  world.  With  him  metaphysic-  was  a  study  altogether 
divorced  from  man's  higher  life  and  aspirations.  So  also  were 
physics.  What  need  had  he  of  cosmogonies?  what  need  to 
trace  the  relations  between  man  and  the  universe,  or  the  uni 
verse  and  its  Maker  ?  He  had  his  definite  material  Elysium 
and  Tartarus,  as  the  only  ultimate  relation  between  man  and  the 
universe ;  his  dogma  of  an  absolute  fiat,  creating  arbitrary  and 
once  for  all,  as  the  only  relation  between  the  universe  and  its 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.         393 

Maker :  and  further  it  was  not  lawful  to  speculate.  The  idea 
which  I  believe  unites  both  physic  and  metaphysic  with  man's 
highest  aspirations  and  widest  speculations, — the  Alexandria  idea 
of  the  Logos,  of  the  Deity  working  in  time  and  space  by  succes 
sive  thoughts, — he  had  not  heard  of;  for  it  was  dead,  as  I  have 
said,  in  Alexandria  itself;  and  if  he  had  heard  of  it,  he  would 
have  spurned  it  as  detracting  from  the  absoluteness  of  that  abys 
mal  one  Being,  of  whom  he  so  nobly  yet  so  partially  bore  witness. 
So  it  was  to  be  ;  doubtless,  it  was  right  that  it  should  be  so. 
Man's  eye  is  too  narrow  to  see  a  whole  truth,  his  brain  too  weak 
to  carry  a  whole  truth.  Better  for  him,  and  better  for  the  world, 
is  perhaps  the  method  on  which  man  has  been  educated  in  every 
age,  by  which  to  each  school,  or  party,  or  nation,  is  given  some 
one  great  truth,  which  they  are  to  work  out  to  its  highest  devel 
opment,  to  exemplify  in  actual  life,  leaving  some  happier  age — 
perhaps,  alas !  only,  some  future  state — to  reconcile  that  too 
favoured  dogma  with  other  truths  which  lie  beside  it,  and  with 
out  which  it  is  always  incomplete,  and  sometimes  altogether 
barren. 

But  such  schools  of  science,  founded  on  such  a  ground  as  this, 
on  the  mere  instinct  of  curiosity,  had  little  chance  of  originality 
or  vitality.  All  the  great  schools  of  the  world,  the  elder  Greek 
philosophy,  the  Alexandrian,  the  present  Baconian  school  of 
physics,  have  had  a  deeper  motive  for  their  search,  a  far  higher 
object  which  they  hope  to  discover.  But  indeed,  the  Mussul 
mans  did  not  so  much  wish  to  discover  truth,  as  to  cultivate  their 
own  intellects.  For  that  purpose  a  sharp  and  subtle  systematist, 
like  Aristotle,  was  the  very  man  whom  they  required ;  and  from 
the  destruction  of  Alexandria  may  date  the  rise  of  the  Aristote 
lian  philosophy.  Translations  of  his  works  were  made  into 
Arabic,  first,  it  is  said,  from  Persian  and  Syriac  translations ;  the 
former  of  which  had  been  made  during  the  sixth  and  seventh 
centuries,  by  the  wreck  of  the  Neoplatonist  party,  during  their 
visit  to  the  philosophic  Chozroos.  A  century  after,  they  filled 
Alexandria.  After  them  Almansoor,  Hairoun  Alraschid,  and 
their  successors,  who  patronized  the  Nestorian  Christians,  ob 
tained  from  them  translations  of  the  philosophic,  medical,  and 
astronomical  Greek  works ;  while  the  last  of  the  Omniades, 
Abdalrahman,  had  introduced  the  same  literary  taste  into  Spain, 
where,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  Averroes  and  Maimonides 
rivalled  the  fame  of  Avicenna,  who  had  flourished  at  Bagdad  a 
century  before. 

But,  as  I  have  said  already,  these  Arabs  seem  to  have  invented 
nothing ;  they  only  commented.  And  yet  not  only  commented  ; 
for  they  preserved  for  us  those  works  of  wjiose  real  value  they 
17* 


394  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

were  so  little  aware.  Averroes,  in  quality  of  commentator  on 
Aristotle,  became  his  rival  in  the  minds  of  the  mediaeval  school 
men  ;  Avicenna,  in  quality  of  commentator  on  Hippocrates  and 
Galen,  was  for  centuries  the  text-book  of  all  European  physi 
cians  ;  while  Albatani  and  Aboul  Wefa,  as  astronomers,  com 
mented  on  Ptolemy,  not  however  without  making  a  few  important 
additions  to  his  knowledge  ;  for  Aboul  Wefa  discovered  a  third 
inequality  of  the  moon's  motion,  in  addition  to  the  two  mentioned 
by  Ptolemy,  which  he  did,  according  to  Professor  Whewell,  in  a 
truly  philosophic  manner — an  apparently  solitary  instance,  and 
one  which,  in  its  own  day,  had  no  effect ;  for  the  fact  was  for 
gotten,  and  rediscovered  centuries  after  by  Tycho  Brahe.  To 
Albatani,  however,  we  owe  two  really  valuable  heirlooms.  The 
one  is  the  use  of  the  sine,  or  half-chord  of  the  double  arc,  instead 
of  the  chord  of  the  arc  itself,  which  had  been  employed  by  the 
Greek  astronomers  ;  the  other,  of  even  more  practical  benefit, 
was  the  introduction  of  the  present  decimal  arithmetic,  instead  of 
the  troublesome  sexagesimal  arithmetic  of  the  Greeks.  These 
ten  digits,  however,  seem,  says  Professor  Whewell,  by  the  con 
fession  of  the  Arabians  themselves,  to  be  of  Indian  origin,  and 
thus  form  no  exception  to  the  sterility  of  the  Arabian  genius  in 
scientific  inventions.  Nevertheless  we  are  bound,  in  all  fairness, 
to  set  against  his  condemnation  of  the  Arabs  Professor  De  Mor 
gan's  opinion  of  the  Moslem,  in  his  article  on  Euclid :  "  Some 
writers  speak  slightingly  of  this  progress,  the  results  of  which 
they  are  too  apt  to  compare  with  those  of  our  own  time.  They 
ought  rather  to  place  the  Saracens  by  the  side  of  their  own 
Gothic  ancestors  ;  and,  making  some  allowance  for  the  more  ad 
vantageous  circumstances  under  which  the  first  started,  they 
should  view  the  second  systematically  dispersing  the  remains  of 
Greek  civilization,  while  the  first  were  concentrating  the  geom 
etry  of  Alexandria,  the  arithmetic  and  algebra  of  India,  and  the 
astronomy  of  both,  to  form  a  nucleus  for  the  present  state  of 
science." 

To  this  article  of  Professor  Morgan's  on  Euclid,*  and  to  Pro 
fessor  Whewell's  excellent  History  of  the  Inductive  Sciences 
from  which  I,  being  neither  Arabic  scholar  nor  astronomer,  have 
drawn  most  of  my  facts  about  physical  science,  I  must  refer 
those  Avho  wish  to  know  more  of  the  early  rise  of  physics,  and 
of  their  preservation  by  the  Arabs,  till  a  great  and  unexpected 
event  brought  them  back  again  to  the  quarter  of  the  globe  where 
they  had  their  birth,  and  where  alone  they  could  be  regenerated 
into  a  new  and  practical  life. 

That  great  event  was  the  Crusades.  We  have  heard  little  of 
*  Smith's  Classical  Dictionary. 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.  395 

Alexandria  lately.  Its  intellectual  glory  had  departed  westward 
and  eastward,  to  Cordova  and  to  Bagdad ;  its  commercial  great 
ness  had  left  it  for  Cairo  and  Damietta.  But  Egypt  was  still  the 
centre  of  communication  between  the  two  great  stations  of  the 
Moslem  power,  and  indeed,  as  Mr.  Lane  has  shown  in  his  most 
valuable  translation  of  the  Arabian  Nights,  possessed  a  peculiar 
life  and  character  of  its  own. 

It  was  the  rash  object  of  the  Crusaders  to  extinguish  that  life. 
Palestine  was  first  their  point  of  attack  :  but  the  later  Crusaders 
seem  to  have  found,  like  the  rest  of  the  world,  that  the  destinies 
of  Palestine  could  not  be  separated  from  those  of  Egypt ;  and  to 
Damietta,  accordingly,  was  directed  that  last  disastrous  attempt 
of  St.  Louis,  which  all  may  read  so  graphically  described  in  the 
pages  of  Joinville. 

The  Crusaders  failed  utterly  of  the  object  at  which  they  aimed. 
They  succeeded  in  an  object  of  which  they  never  dreamed ;  for 
in  those  Crusades  the  Moslem  and  the  Christian  had  met  face  to 
face,  and  found  that  both  were  men,  that  they  had  a  common 
humanity,  a  common  eternal  standard  of  nobleness  and  virtue. 
So  the  Christian  knights  went  home  humbler  and  wiser  men, 
when  they  found  in  the  Saracen  emirs  the  same  generosity,  truth, 
mercy,  chivalrous  self-sacrifice,  which  they  had  fancied  their  own 
peculiar  possession,  and  added  to  that,  a  civilization  and  a  learn 
ing  which  they  could  only  admire  and  imitate.  And  thus,  from 
the  era  of  the  Crusades,  a  kindlier  feeling  sprung  up  between 
the  Crescent  and  the  Cross,  till  it  was  again  broken  by  the  fear 
ful  invasions  of  the  Turks  throughout  eastern  Europe.  The 
learning  of  the  Moslem,  as  well  as  their  commerce,  began  to 
pour  rapidly  into  Christendom,  both  from  Spain,  Egypt,  and 
Syria  ;  and  thus  the  Crusaders  were,  indeed,  rewarded  accord.- 
ing  to  their  deeds.  They  had  fancied  that  they  were  bound  to 
vindicate  the  possession  of  the  earth  for  him  to  whom  they  be 
lieved  the  earth  belonged.  He  showed  them — or  rather  He  has 
shown  us,  their  children — that  He  can  vindicate  his  own  do 
minion  better  far  than  man  can  do  it  for  Him;  and  their  cruel 
and  unjust  aim  was  utterly  foiled.  That  was  not  the  way  to 
make  men  know  or  obey  Him.  They  took  the  sword,  and  per 
ished  by  the  sword.  But  the  truly  noble  element  in  them, — the 
element  which  our  hearts  and  reasons  recognize  and  love,  in  spite 
of  all  the  loud  words  about  the  folly  and  fanaticism  of  the  Cru 
sades,  whensoever  we  read  the  Talisman  or  Ivanhoe, — the  ele 
ment  of  loyal  faith  and  self-sacrifice — did  not  go  unrequited. 
They  learnt  wider,  juster  views  of  man  and  virtue,  which  I  can 
not  help  believing  must  have  had  great  effect  in  weakening  in 
their  minds  their  old,  exclusive,  and  bigoted  notions,  and  in 


396  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

paving  the  way  for  the  great  outburst  of  free  thought,  and  the 
great  assertion  of  the  dignity  of  humanity,  which  the  fifteenth 
century  beheld.  They  opened  a  path  for  that  influx  of  scientific 
knowledge  which  has  produced,  in  after  centuries,  the  most  enor 
mous  effects  on  the  welfare  of  Europe,  and  made  life  possible 
for  millions  who  would  otherwise  have  been  pent  within  the 
narrow  bounds  of  Europe,  to  devour  each  other  in  the  struggle 
for  room  and  bread. 

But  those  Arabic  translations  of  Greek  authors  were  a  fatal 
gift  for  Egypt,  and  scarcely  less  fatal  gift  for  Bagdad.  In  that 
Almagest  of  Ptolemy,  in  that  Organon  of  Aristotle,  which  the 
Crusaders  are  said  to  have  brought  home,  lay,  rude  and  em- 
bryotic,  the  germs  of  that  physical  science,  that  geographical 
knowledge,  which  has  opened  to  the  European  the  commerce 
and  the  colonization  of  the  globe.  Within  three  hundred  years 
after  his  works  reached  Europe,  Ptolemy  had  taught  the  Por 
tuguese  to  sail  round  Africa ;  and  from  that  day  the  stream  of 
eastern  wealth  flowed  no  longer  through  the  Red  Sea,  or  the 
Persian  Gulf,  on  its  way  to  the  new  countries  of  the  West ;  and 
not  only  Alexandria,  but  Damietta  and  Bagdad,  dwindled  down 
to  their  present  insignificance.  And  yet  the  whirligig  of  time 
brings  about  its  revenges.  The  stream  of  commerce  is  now 
rapidly  turning  back  to  its  old  channel ;  and  British  science  bids 
fair  to  make  Alexandria  once  more  the  inn  of  all  the  nations. 

It  is  with  a  feeling  of  awe  that  one  looks  upon  the  huge  possi 
bilities  of  her  future.  Her  own  physical  capacities,  as  the  great 
mind  of  Napoleon  saw,  are  what  they  have  always  been,  inex 
haustible  ;  and  science  has  learnt  to  set  at  nought  the  only  defect 
of  situation  which  has  ever  injured  her  prosperity,  namely,  the 
short  land  passage  from  the  Nile  to  the  Red  Sea.  The  fate  of 
Palestine  is  now  more  than  ever  bound  up  with  her  fate  ;  and  a 
British  or  French  colony  might,  holding  the  two  countries, 
develop  itself  into  a  nation  as  vast  as  sprang  from  Alexander's 
handful  of  Macedonians,  and  become  the  meeting  point  for  the 
nations  of  the  West,  and  those  great  Anglo-Saxon  peoples  who 
seem  destined  to  spring  up  in  the  Australian  ocean.  Wide  as 
the  dream  may  appear,  steam  has  made  it  a  far  narrower  one 
than  the  old  actual  fact,  that  for  centuries  the  Phoenician  and 
the  Arabian  interchanged  at  Alexandria  the  produce  of  Britain 
for  that  of  Ceylon  and  Hindostan.  And  as  for  intellectual  devel 
opment,  though  Alexandria  wants,  as  she  has  always  wanted, 
that  insular  and  exclusive  position  which  seems  almost  necessary 
to  develop  original  thought  and  original  national  life,  yet  she  may 
still  act  as  the  point  of  fusion  for  distinct  schools  and  polities,  and 
the  young  and  buoyant  vigour  of  the  new-born  nations  may  at 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  HER  SCHOOLS.         397 

once  teach,  and  learn  from,  the  prudence,  the  experience,  the 
traditional  wisdom  of  the  ancient  Europeans. 

This  vision,  however  possible,  may  be  a  far-off  one :  but  the 
first  step  towards  it,  at  least,  is  being  laid  before  our  eyes, — and 
that  is,  a  fresh  reconciliation  between  the  Crescent  and  the 
Cross.  Apart  from  all  political  considerations,  which  would  be 
out  of  place  here,  I  hail,  as  a  student  of  philosophy,  the  school 
which  is  now,  both  in  Alexandria  and  in  Constantinople,  teach 
ing  to  Moslem  and  to  Christians  the  same  lesson  which  the  Cru 
saders  learnt  in  Egypt  five  hundred  years  ago.  A  few  years' 
more  perseverance  in  the  valiant  and  righteous  course  which 
Britain  has  now  chosen,  will  reward  itself  by  opening  a  vast  field 
for  capital  and  enterprise,  for  the  introduction  of  civil  and  relig 
ious  liberty  among  the  down-trodden  peasantry  of  Egypt ;  as  the 
Giaour  becomes  an  object  of  respect,  and  trust,  and  gratitude  to 
the  Moslem  ;  and  as  the  feeling  that  Moslem  and  Giaour  own  a 
common  humanity,  a  common  eternal  standard  of  justice  and 
mercy,  a  common  sacred  obligation  to  perform  our  promises,  and 
to  succour  the  oppressed,  shall  have  taken  place  of  the  old  brute 
wonder  at  our  careless  audacity,  and  awkward  assertion  of  power, 
which  now  expresses  itself  in  the  somewhat  left-handed  Alexan 
drian  compliment, — "  There  is  one  Satan,  and  there  are  many 
Satans :  but  there  is  no  Satan  like  a  Frank  in  a  round  hat." 

It  would  be  both  uncourteous  and  unfair  of  me  to  close  these 
my  hasty  Lectures,  without  expressing  my  hearty  thanks  for  the 
great  courtesy  and  kindness  which  I  have  received  in  this  my 
first  visit  to  your  most  noble  and  beautiful  city,  and  often,  I  am 
proud  to  say,  from  those  who  differ  from  me  deeply  on  many  im 
portant  points  ;  and  also  for  the  attention  with  which  I  have  been 
listened  to  while  trying,  clumsily  enough,  to  explain  dry  and 
repulsive  subjects,  and  to  express  opinions  which  may  be  new, 
and  perhaps  startling,  to  many  of  my  hearers.  If  my  imperfect 
hints  shall  have  stirred  up  but  one  hearer  to  investigate  this 
obscure  and  yet  most  important  subject,  and  to  examine  for  him 
self  the  original  documents,  I  shall  feel  that  my  words  in  this 
place  have  not  been  spoken  in  vain  ;  for  even  if  such  a  seeker 
should  arrive  at  conclusions  different  from  my  own  (and  I  pre 
tend  to  no  infallibility,)  he  will  at  least  have  learnt  new  facts,  the 
parents  of  new  thought,  perhaps  of  new  action  ;  he  will  have 
come  face  to  face  with  new  human  beings,  in  whom  he  will  have 
been  compelled  to  take  a  human  interest ;  and  will  surely  rise 
from  his  researches,  let  them  lead  him  where  they  will,  at  least 
somewhat  of  a  wider-minded  and  a  wider-hearted  man. 


398  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 


MY  WINTER-GARDEN. 

BY     A     MINUTE     PHILOSOPHER. 

[Fraser's  Magazine.'] 

So,  my  friend  :  you  ask  me  to  tell  you  how  I  contrive  to  sup 
port  this  monotonous  country  life  ;  how,  fond  as  I  am  of  excite 
ment,  adventure,  society,  scenery,  art,  literature,  I  go  cheerfully 
through  the  daily  routine  of  a  commonplace  country  profession, 
never  requiring  a  six- weeks'  holiday;  not  caring  to* see  the  Con 
tinent,  hardly  even  to  spend  a  day  in  London ;  having  never  yet 
actually  got  to  Paris. 

You  wonder  why  I  do  not  grow  dull  as  those  round  me,  whose 
talk  is  of  bullocks — as  indeed  mine  is  often  enough ;  why  I  am 
not  by  this  time  "  all  over  blue  mould  ; "  why  I  have  not  been 
tempted  to  bury  myself  in  my  study,  and  live  a  life  of  dreams 
among  old  books. 

I  will  tell  you.  I  am  a  minute  philosopher.  I  am  possibly, 
after  all,  a  man  of  small  mind,  content  with  small  pleasures.  So 
much  the  better  for  me.  Meanwhile,  I  can  understand  your  sur 
prise,  though  you  cannot  understand  my  content.  You  have 
played  a  greater  game  than  mine  ;  have  lived  a  life,  perhaps, 
more  fit  for  an  Englishman  ;  certainly  more  in  accordance  with 
the  taste  of  our  common  fathers,  the  Vikings,  and  their  patron 
Odin  "  the  goer,"  father  of  all  them  that  go  ahead.  You  have 
gone  ahead,  and  over  many  lands  ;  and  I  reverence  you  for  it, 
though  I  envy  you  not.  You  have  commanded  a  regiment — in 
deed  an  army,  and  "  drank  delight  of  battle  with  your  peers  ; " 
you  have  ruled  provinces,  and  done  justice  and  judgment,  like  a 
noble  Englishman  as  you  are,  old  friend,  among  thousands  who 
never  knew  before  what  justice  and  judgment  were.  You  have 
tasted  (and  you  have  deserved  to  taste)  the  joy  of  old  David's 
psalms  when  he  has  hunted  down  the  last  of  the  robber  lords  of 
Palestine.  You  have  seen  "  a  people  whom  you  have  not  known, 
serve  you.  As  soon  as  they  heard  of  you,  they  obeyed  you  ;  but 
the  straffge  children  dissembled  with  you  :  "  yet  before  you,  too, 
"  the  strange  children  failed,  and  trembled  in  their  hill-forts." 


MY  WINTER-GARDEN.  399 

Noble  work  that  was  to  do,  and  nobly  you  have  done  it ;  and  I 
do  not  wonder  that  to  a  man  who  has  been  set  to  such  a  task,  and 
given  power  to  carry  it  through,  all  smaller  work  must  seem  pal 
try  ;  that  such  a  man's  very  amusements,  in  that  grand  Indian 
land,  and  that  free  adventurous  Indian  life,  exciting  the  imagina 
tion,  calling  out  all  the  self-help  and  daring  of  a  man,  should 
have  been  on  a  par  with  your  work  ;  that  when  you  go  a-sport- 
ing,  you  ask  for  no  meaner  preserve  than  the  primaeval  forest,  no 
lower  park  wall  than  the  snow-peaks  of  the  Himalaya. 

Yes  ;  you  have  been  a  "  burra  Shikarree  "  as  well  as  a  burra 
Sahib.  You  have  played  the  great  game  in  your  work,  and 
killed  the  great  game  in  your  play.  How  many  tons  of  mighty 
monsters  have  you  done  to  death,  since  we  two  were  school-boys 
together,  five-and-twenty  years  ago  ?  How  many  starving  vil 
lages  have  you  fed  with  the  flesh  of  elephant  or  buffalo  ?  How 
many  have  you  delivered  from  man-eating  tigers,  or  wary  old  alli 
gators,  their  craws  full  of  poor  girls'  bangles  ?  Have  you  not 
been  charged  by  rhinoceroses,  all  but  ript  up  Ity  boars  ?  Have 
you  not  seen  face  to  face  Ovis  Ammon  himself,  the  giant  moun 
tain  sheep — primaeval  ancestor,  perhaps,  of  all  the  flocks  on  earth  ? 
Your  memories  must  be  like  those  of  Theseus  and  Hercules,  full 
of  slain  monsters.  Your  brains  must  be  one  fossiliferous  deposit, 
in  which  buffalo  and  samber,  hog  and  tiger,  rhinoceros  and  ele 
phant,  lie  heaped  together,  as  the  old  ichthyosaurs  and  plesiosaurs 
are  heaped  in  the  lias  rocks  at  Lyme.  And  therefore  I  like  to 
think  of  you.  I  try  to  picture  your  feelings  to  myself.  I  spell 
over  with  my  boy  Mayne  Reid's  delightful  books,  or  the  Old 
Forest  Ranger,  or  Williams's  old  Tiger  Book,  with  Howitt's 
plates,  and  try  to  realize  the  glory  of  a  burra  Shikarree  ;  and 
as  I  read  and  imagine,  feel  with  Sir  Hugh  Evans,  "  a  great  dis 
position  to  cry." 

For  there  were  times,  full  many  a  year  ago,  when  my  brains 
were  full  of  bison  and  grizzly  bear,  mustang  and  big-horn,  Black- 
foot  and  Pawnee,  and  hopes  of  wild  adventure  in  the  Far  West, 
which  I  shall  never  see  ;  for  ere  I  was  three-and-twenty  I  discov 
ered,  plainly  enough,  that  my  lot  was  to  stay  at  home  and  earn 
my  bread  in  a  very  quiet  way  ;  that  England  was  to  be  hence 
forth  my  prison  or  my  palace,  as  I  should  choose  to  make  it ; 
and  I  have  made  it,  by  Heaven's  help,  the  latter. 

I  will  confess  to  you,  though,  that  in  those  first  heats  of  youth, 
this  little  England — or  rather,  this  little  patch  of  moor  in  which 
I  have  struck  roots  as  firm  as  the  wild  fir-trees  do — looked  at 
moments  rather  like  a  prison  than  a  palace  ;  that  my  foolish 
young  heart  would  sigh,  "  Oh !  that  I  had  wings  " — not  as  a  dove, 
to  fly  home  to  its  nest  and  croodle  there — but  as  an  eagle,  to 


400  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

swoop  away  over  land  and  sea,  in  a  rampant  and  self-glorifying 
fashion,  on  which  I  now  look  back  as  altogether  unwholesome 
and  undesirable.  But  the  thirst  for  adventure  and  excitement 
was  strong  in  me,  as  perhaps  it  ought  to  be  in  all  at  twenty-five. 
Others  went  out  to  see  the  glorious  new  worlds  of  the  West,  the 
glorious  old  worlds  of  the  East — why  should  not  I  ?  Others  ram 
bled  over  Alps  and  Apennines,  Italian  picture-galleries  and  pal 
aces,  filling  their  minds  with  fair  memories — why  should  not  I? 
Others  discovered  new  wonders  in  botany  and  zoology — why 
should  not  I  ?  Others  too,  like  you,  fulfilled  to  the  utmost  that 
strange  lust  after  the  burra  shikar,  which  even  now  makes  my 
pulse  throb  as  often  as  I  see  the  stags'  heads  in  our  friend 

A 's  hall :  why  should  not  I  ?  It  is  not  learnt  in  a  day,  the 

golden  lesson  of  the  Old  Collect,  to  "  love  the  thing  which  is 
commanded,  and  desire  that  which  is  promised."  Not  in  a  day  : 
but  in  fifteen  years  one  can  spell  out  a  little  of  its  worth ;  and 
when  one  finds  one's  self  on  the  wrong  side  of  eight-and-thirty, 
and  the  first  grfiy  hairs  begin  to  show  on  the  temples,  and  one 
can  no  longer  jump  as  high  as  one's  third  button — scarcely,  alas  ! 
to  any  button  at  all ;  and  what  with  innumerable  sprains,  bruises, 
soakings,  and  chillings,  one's  lower  limbs  feel  in  a  cold  thaw 
much  like  an  old  post-horse's,  why,  one  makes  a  virtue  of  neces 
sity  ;  and  if  one  still  lusts  after  sights,  takes  the  nearest,  and 
looks  for  wonders,  not  in  the  Himalayas  or  Lake  Ngami,  but  in 
the  turf  on  the  lawn  and  the  brook  in  the  park  ;  and  with  good 
Alphonse  Karr  enjoys  the  macro-microcosm  in  one  Tour  autour 
de  mon  jardin. 

For  there  it  is,  friend,  the  whole  infinite  miracle  of  nature  in 
every  -tuft  of  grass,  if  we  have  only  eyes  to  see  it,  and  can  dis 
abuse  our  minds  of  that  tyrannous  phantom  of  size.  Only  rec 
ollect  that  great  and  small  are  but  relative  terms ;  that  in  truth 
nothing  is  great  or  small,  save  in  proportion  to  the  quantity  of 
creative  thought  which  has  been  exercised  in  making  it ;  that  the 
fly  who  basks  upon  one  of  the  trilithons  of  Stonehenge,  is  in 
truth  infinitely  greater  than  all  Stonehenge  together,  though  he 
may  measure  the  tenth  of  an  inch,  and  the  stone  on  which  he 
sits  five  and  twenty  feet.  You  differ  from  me  ?  Be  it  so.  Even 
if  you  prove  me  wrong  I  will  believe  myself  in  the  right :  I  can 
not  afford  to  do  otherwise.  If  you  rob  me  of  my  faith  in  "  minute 
philosophy,"  you  rob  me  of  a  continual  source  of  content,  sur 
prise,  delight. 

So  go  your  way  and  I  mine,  each  working  with  all  his  might, 
and  playing  with  all  his  might,  in  his  own  place  and  way.  Re 
member  only  that  though  I  never  can  come  round  to  your  sphere, 
you  must  some  day  come  round  to  me  in  the  day  when  wounds, 


MY  WINTER-GARDEN.  401 

or  weariness,  or  merely,  as  I  hope,  a  healthy  old  age,  will  shut 
you  out  for  once  and  for  all  from  burra  shikar,  whether  human 
or  quadruped — For  you  surely  will  not  take  to  politics  in  your 
old  age  ?  I  shall  not  surely  live  to  see  you  (as  I  saw  many  a 
fine  fellow — woe's  me  ! — last  year)  soliciting  the  votes,  not  of  the 
people,  but  of  the  snobocracy,  on  the  ground  of  your  having 
neither  policy,  nor  principles,  nor  even  opinions,  upon  any  matter 
in  heaven  or  earth? — Then  in  that  day  will  you  be  forced,  my 
friend,  to  do  what  I  have  done  this  many  a  year ;  to  refrain  your 
soul  and  keep  it  low.  You  will  see  more  and  more  the  depth  of 
human  ignorance,  the  vanity  of  human  endeavors.  You  will  feel 
more  and  more  that  theVorld  is  going  God's  way,  and  not  yours, 
or  mine,  or  any  man's ;  and  that  if  you  have  been  allowed  to  do 
good  work  on  earth,  that  work  is  probably  as  different  from  what 
you  fancy  it  as  the  tree  is  from  the  seed  whence  it  springs.  You 
will  grow  content,  therefore,  not  to  see  the  real  fruit  of  your 
labours ;  because  if  you  saw  it  you  would  probably  be  frightened 
at  it,  and  what  is  very  good  in  the  eyes  of  God  would  not  be 
very  good  in  yours ;  and  content,  also,  to  receive  your  discharge, 
and  work  and  fight  no  more,  sure  that  God  is  working  and  fight 
ing  whether  you  are  in  hospital  or  in  the  field.  And  with  this 
growing  sense  of  the  pettiness  of  human  struggles  will  grow  on 
you  a  respect  for  simple  labours,  a  thankfulness  for  simple  pleas 
ures,  a  sympathy  with  simple  people,  and  possibly,  my  trusty 
friend,  with  me  and  my  little  tours  about  that  moorland  which  I 
call  my  winter-garden,  and  which  is  to  me  as  full  of  glory  and 
of  instruction  as  the  Himalaya  or  the  Punjab  are  to  you,  and  in 
which  I  contrive  to  find  as  much  health  and  amusement  as  I  have 
time  for — and  who  ought  to  have  more  ? 

I  call  the  said  garden  mine,  not  because  I  own  it  in  any  legal 
sense,  (for  only  in  a  few  acres  have  I  a  life  interest,)  but  in  that 
higher  sense  in  which  ten  thousand  people  can  own  the  same 
thing,  and  yet  no  man's  right  interfere  with  another's.  To  whom 
does  the  Apollo  Belvedere  belong,  but  to  all  who  have  eyes  to 
see  its  beauty  ?  So  does  my  winter-garden ;  and  therefore  to 
me  among  the  rest. 

And  therefore  (which  is  a  gain  to  a  poor  man)  my  pleasure  in 
it  is  a  very  cheap  one.  So  are  all  those  of  a  minute  philosopher, 
except  his  microscope.  But  my  winter-garden,  which  is  far 
larger,  at  all  events,  than  that  famous  one  at  Chatsworth,  costs 
me  not  one  penny  in  keeping  up.  Poor,  did  I  call  myself?  Is 
it  not  true  wealth  to  have  all  I  want  without  paying  for  it  ?  Is  it 
not  true  wealth,  royal  wealth,  to  have  some  twenty  gentlemen 
and  noblemen,  nay,  even  royal  personages,  planting  and  improv 
ing  for  me  ?  Is  it  not  more  than  royal  wealth  to  have  sun  and 


402  KINGSLEY'S    MISCELLANIES. 

frost,  gulf-stream  and  southwesters,  laws  of  geology,  philology, 
physiology,  and  other  ologies — in  a  word,  the  whole*  universe  and 
the  powers  thereof,  day  and  night,  paving,  planting,  roofing,  light 
ing,  colouring  my  winter-garden  for  me,  without  my  even  having 
the  trouble  to  rub  a  magic  ring  and  tell  the  genie  to  go  to  work  ? 

Yes.  I  am  very  rich,  as  every  man  may  be  who  will.  In  the 
doings  of  our  little  country  neighbourhood  I  find  tragedy  and 
comedy,  too  fantastic,  sometimes  too  sad,  to  be  written  down.  In 
the  words  of  those  whose  talk  is  of  bullocks,  I  find  the  materials 
of  all  possible  metaphysic,  and  long  weekly  that  I  had  time  to 
work  them  out.  In  fifteen  miles  of  moorland  I  find  the  ma 
terials  of  all  possible  physical  science,  "and  long,  too,  that  I  had 
time  to  work  out  one  smallest  segment  of  that  great  sphere.  How 
can  I  be  richer,  if  I  have  lying  at  my  feet  all  day  a  thousand 
times  more  wealth  than  I  can  use  ? 

Some  people — most  people — in  these  run-about  railway  days, 
would  complain  of  such  a  life,  in  such  a  "  narrow  sphere,"  so 
they  call  it,  as  monotonous.  Very  likely  it  is  so.  But  is  it  to  be 
complained  of  on  that  account  ?  Is  monotony  in  itself  an  evil  ? 
Which  is  better,  to  know  many  places  ill,  or  to  know  one  place 
well  ?  Certainly — if  a  scientific  habit  of  mind  be  a  gain — it  is 
only  by  exhausting  as  far  as  possible  the  significance  of  an  indi 
vidual  phenomenon  (is  not  that  sentence  a  truly  scientific  one  in 
its  magniloquence  ?) — that  you  can  discover  any  glimpse  of  the 
significance  of  the  universal.  Even  men  of  boundless  knowledge, 
like  Humboldt,  must  have  had  once  their  specialty,  their  pet 
subject,  or  they  would  have,  strictly  speaking,  no  knowledge  at 
all.  The  volcanoes  of  Mexico,  patiently  and  laboriously  investi 
gated  in  his  youth,  were  to  Humboldt,  possibly,  the  key  of  the 
whole  Cosmos.  I  learn  more,  studying  over  and  over  again  the 
same  Bagshot  sand  and  gravel  heaps,  than  I  should  by  roaming 
all  Europe  in  search  of  new  geologic  wonders.  Fifteen  years 
have  I  been  puzzling  at  the  same  questions,  and  have  only 
guessed  at  a  few  of  the  answers.  What  sawed  out  the  edges 
of  the  moors  into  long  narrow  banks  of  gravel  ?  What  cut  them 
off  all  flat  atop  ?  What  makes  Erica  ciliaris  grow  in  one  soil, 
and  the  bracken  in  another  ?  How  did  three  species  of  Club- 
moss — one  of  them  quite  an  Alpine  one — get  down  here,  all  the 
way  from  Wales  perhaps,  upon  this  isolated  patch  of  gravel  ? 
Why  did  that  one  patch  of  Carex  arenaria  settle  in  the  only 
square  yard  for  miles  and  miles  which  bore  sufficient  resemblance 
to  its  native  sand-hill  by  the  sea-shore,  to  make  it  comfortable  ? 
Why  did  Myosurus  minimus,  which  I  had  hunted  for  in  vain  for 
fourteen  years,  appear  by  dozens  in  the  fifteenth,  upon  a  new- 
made  bank,  which  had  been  for  at  least  for  two  hundred  years  a 


MY  WINTER-GARDEN.  403 

farmyard  gateway  &  Why  does  it  generally  rain  here  from  the 
southwest,  not  when  the  barometer  falls,  but  when  it  begins  to 
rise  again  ?  Why — why  is  every  thing,  which  lies  under  my 
feet  all  day  long  ?  I  don't  know ;  and  you  can't  tell  me.  And 
till  I  have  found  out,  I  cannot  complain  of  monotony,  with  still 
undiscovered  puzzles  waiting  to  be  explained,  and  so  to  create 
novelty  at  every  turn. 

Besides,  monotony  is  pleasant  in  itself;  morally  pleasant,  and 
morally  useful.  Marriage  is  monotonous ;  but  there  is  much,  I 
trust,  to  be  said  in  favour  of  holy  wedlock.  Living  in  the  same 
house  is  monotonous :  but  three  removes,  say  the  wise,  are  as 
bad  as  a  fire.  Locomotion  is  regarded  as  an  evil  by  our  Litany. 
The  Litany,  as  usual,  is  right.  "  Those  who  travel  by  land  or 
sea  "  are  to  be  objects  of  our  pity  and  our  prayers  ;  and  I  do  pity 
them.  I  delight  in  that  same  monotony.  It  saves  curiosity, 
anxiety,  excitement,  disappointment,  and  a  host  of  bad  passions. 
It  gives  a  man  the  blessed  invigorating  feeling  that  he  is  at 
home ;  that  he  has  roots,  deep  and  wide,  struck  down  into  all  he 
sees ;  and  that  only  the  Being  who  will  do  nothing  cruel  or  use 
less  can  tear  them  up.  It  is  pleasant  to  look  down  on  the  same 
parish  day  after  day,  and  say,  I  know  all  that  lies  beneath,  and 
all  beneath  know  me.  If  I  want  a  friend,  I  know  where  to  find 
him ;  if  I  ^ant  work  done,  I  know  who  will  do  it.  It  is  pleasant 
and  good  to  see  the  same  trees  year  after  year ;  the  same  birds 
coming  back  in  the  spring  to  the  same  shrubs ;  the  same  banks 
covered  with  the  same  flowers,  and  broken  (if  they  be  stiff  ones) 
by  the  same  gaps.  Pleasant  and  good  it  is  to  ride  the  same 
horse,  to  sit  in  the  same  chair,  to  wear  the  same  old  coat.  That 
man  who  offered  twenty  pounds  reward  for  a  lost  carpet  bag  full 
of  old  boots  was  a  sage,  and  I  wish  I  knew  him.  Why  should 
one  change  one's  place,  any  more  than  one's  wife  or  one's  chil 
dren  ?  Is  a  hermit-crab,  slipping  his  tail  out  of  one  strange  shell 
into  another,  in  the  hopes  of  its  fitting  him  a  little  better,  either 
a  dignified,  safe,  or  graceful  animal  ?  No  ;  George  Riddler  was 
a  true  philosopher. 

"  Let  vules  go  sarching  vur  and  nigh, 
We  bides  at  Whum,  my  dog  and  1; " 

and  become  there,  not  only  wiser,  but  more  charitable ;  for  the 
oftener  one  sees,  the  better  one  knows ;  and  the  better  one  knows, 
the  more  one  loves. 

It  is  an  easy  philosophy ;  especially  in  the  case  of  the  horse, 
where  a  man  cannot  afford  more  than  one,  as  I  cannot.  To  own 
a  stud  of  horses,  after  all,  is  not  to  own  horses  at  all,  but  riding- 
machines.  Your  rich  man  who  rides  Crimxea  in  the  morning, 


404  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

Sir  Guy  in  the  afternoon,  and  Sultan  to-morrow,  and  something 
else  the  next  day,  may  be  a  very  gallant  rider :  but  it  is  a  ques 
tion  whether  he  enjoys  the  pleasure  which  one  horse  gives  to  the 
poor  man  who  rides  him  day  after  day ;  one  horse  who  is  not  a 
slave,  but  a  friend ;  who  has  learnt  all  his  tricks  of  voice,  hand, 
heel,  and  knows  what  his  master  wants,  even  without  being  told ; 
who  will  bear  with  his  master's  infirmities,  and  feels  secure  that 
his  master  will  bear  with  his  in  turn. 

Possibly,  after  all,  the  grapes  are  sour ;  and  were  one  rich,  one 
would  do  even  as  the  rich  are  wont ;  but  still,  I  am  a  minute 
philosopher.  And  therefore,  this  afternoon,  after  I  have  done  the 
same  work,  visited  the  same  people,  and  said  the  same  words  to 
them,  which  I  have  done  for  years'  past,  and  shall,  I  trust,  for 
many  a  year  to  come,  I  shah1  go  wandering  out  into  the  same 
winter-garden  on  the  same  old  mare  ;  and  think  the  same  thoughts, 
and  see  the  same  fir-trees,  and  meet  perhaps  the  same  good  fel 
lows  hunting  of  their  fox,  as  I  have  done  with  full  content  this 
many  a  year ;  and  rejoice,  as  I  said  before,  in  my  own  boundless 
wealth,  who  have  the  whole  universe  to  look  at,  without  being 
charged  one  penny  for  the  show. 

As  I  have  said,  the  grapes  may  be  sour,  and  I  enjoy  the  want 
of  luxuries  only  because  I  cannot  get  them;  but  if  my  self- 
deception  be  useful  to  me,  leave  it  alone. 

No  one  is  less  inclined  to  depreciate  that  magnificent  winter- 
garden  at  the  Crystal  Palace :  yet  let  me,  if  I  choose,  prefer  my 
own ;  I  argue  that,  in  the  first  place,  it  is  far  larger.  You  may 
drive,  I  hear,  through  that  grand  one  at  Chatsworth  for  a  quarter 
of  a  mile.  You  may  ride  through  mine  for  fifteen  miles  on  end. 
I  prefer,  too,  to  any  glass  roof  which  Sir  Joseph  Paxton  ever 
planned,  that  dome  above  my  head  some  three  miles  high,  of 
soft  dappled  gray  and  yellow  cloud,  through  the  vast  lattice-work 
whereof  the  blue  sky  peeps,  and  sheds  down  tender  gleams  on 
yellow  bogs  and  softly  rounded  heather  knolls,  and  pale  chalk- 
ranges  gleaming  far  away.  But  above  all,  I  glory  in  my  ever 
greens.  What  winter-garden  can  compare  for  them  with  mine  ? 
True,  I  have  but  four  kinds — the  Scotch  fir,  the  holly,  furze,  and 
the  heath ;  and  by  way  of  relief  to  them,  only  brows  of  brown 
fern,  sheets  of  yellow  bog-grasg,  and  here  and  there  a  leafless 
birch,  whose  purple  tresses  are  even  more  lovely  to  my  eye  than 
those  fragrant  green  ones  which  she  puts  on  in  spring.  "Well : 
in  painting  as  in  music,  what  effects  are  more  grand  than  those 
produced  by  the  scientific  combination,  in  endlessly  new  variety,  of 
a  few  simple  elements  ?  Enough  for  me  is  the  one  purple  birch, 
the  bright  hollies  round  its  stem  sparkling  with  scarlet  beads ;  the 
furze-patch,  rich  with  its  lace-work  of  interwoven  light  and  shade, 


MY  WINTER-GARDEN.  405 

tipped  here  and  there  with  a  golden  bud ;  the  deep  soft  heather 
carpet,  which  invites  you  to  lie  down  and  dream  for  hours  ;  and 
behind  all,  the  wall  of  red  fir-stems,  and  the  dark  fir-roof  with  its 
jagged  edges  a  mile  long,  against  the  soft  gray  sky. 

An  ugly  straight-edged,  monotonous  fir  plantation  ?  Well,  I 
like  it,  outside  and  inside.  I  need  no  saw-edge  of  mountain  peaks 
to  stir  up  my  imagination  with  the  sense  of  the  sublime,  while  I 
can  watch  the  saw-edge  of  those  fir  peaks  against  the  red  sunset. 
They  are  my  Alps ;  little  ones,  it  may  be :  but  after  all,  as  I 
asked  before,  what  is  size  ?  A  phantom  of  our  brain  ;  an  optical 
delusion.  Grandeur,  if  you  will  consider  wisely,  consists  in  form, 
and  not  in  size :  and  to  the  eye  of  the  philosopher,  the  curve 
drawn  on  a  paper  two  inches  long,  is  just  as  magnificent,  just  as 
symbolic  of  divine  mysteries  and  melodies,  as  when  embodied  in 
the  span  of  some  cathedral  roof.  Have  you  eyes  to  see  ?  Then 
lie  down  on  the  grass,  and  look  near  enough  to  see  something 
more  of  what  is  to  be  seen ;  and  you  will  find  tropic  jungles  in 
every  square  foot  of  turf;  mountain  cliffs  and  debacles  at  the 
mouth  of  every  rabbit  burrow ;  dark  strids,  tremendous  cataracts, 
"  deep  glooms  and  sudden  glories,"  in  every  foot-broad  rill  which 
wanders  through  the  turf.  All  is  there  for  you  to  see,  if  you  will 
but  rid  yourself  of  "  that  idol  of  space ; "  and  Nature,  as  every 
one  will  tell  you  who  has  seen  dissected  an  insect  under  the 
microscope,  as  grand  and  graceful  in  her  smallest  as  in  her  hugest 
forms. 

The  March  breeze  is  chilly :  but  I  can  be  always  warm  if  I 
like  in  my  winter-garden.  I  turn  my  horse's  head  to  the  red 
wall  of  fir  stems,  and  leap  over  the  furze-grown  bank  into  my 
cathedral ;  (wherein,  if  there  be  no  saints,  there  are  likewise  no 
priestcraft  and  no  idols ;) — but  endless  vistas  of  smooth  red, 
green-veined  shafts  holding  up  the  warm  dark  roof,  lessening 
away  into  endless  gloom — paved  with  rich  brown  fir-needle — a 
carpet  at  which  Nature  has  been  at  work  for  forty  years.  Red 
shafts,  green  roof,  and  hece  and  there  a  pane  of  blue  sky — 
neither  Owen  Jones  nor  Willement  can  improve  upon  that  eccle 
siastical  ornamentation, — while  for  incense  I  have  the  fresh 
healthy  turpentine  fragrance,  far  sweeter  to  my  nostrils  than  the 
stifling  narcotic  odour  which  fills  a  Roman-catholic  cathedral. 
There  is  not  a  breath  of  air  within :  but  the  breeze  sighs  over 
the  roof  above  in  a  soft  whisper.  I  shut  my  eyes,  and  listen. 
Surely  that  is  the  murmur  of  the  summer  sea  upon  the  summer 
sands  in  Devon  far  away.  I  hear  the  innumerable  wavelets 
spend  themselves  gently  upon  the  shore,  and  die  away  to  rise 
again.  And  with  the  innumerable  wave-sighs  come  innumerable 
memories,  and  faces  which  I  shall  never  see  again  upon  this 
earth.  I  will  not  tell  even  you  of  that,  old  friend. 


406  -KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

It  has  two  notes,  two  keys  rather,  that  Eolian-harp  of  fir 
needles  above  my  head ;  according  as  the  wind  is  east  or  west, 
the  needles  dry  or  wet.  This  easterly  key  of  to-day  is  shriller, 
more  cheerful,  warmer  in  sound,  though  the  day  itself  be  colder ; 
but  grander  still,  as  well  as  softer,  is  the  sad  soughing  key  in 
which  the  southwest  wind  roars  on,  rain-laden,  over  the  forest, 
and  calls  me  forth — being  a  minute  philosopher — to  catch  trout 
in  the  nearest  chalk-stream. 

The  breeze  is  gone  awhile ;  and  I  am  in  perfect  silence,  a 
silence  which  may  be  heard.  Not  a  sound ;  and  not  a  moving 
object ;  absolutely  none.  The  absence  of  animal  life  is  solemn, 
startling.  That  ring-dove,  who  was  cooing  half  a  mile  away, 
has  hushed  his  moan  ;  that  flock  of  long-tailed  titmice,  which 
were  twinging  and  pecking  about  the  fir-cones  a  few  minutes 
since,  are  gone ;  and  now  there  is  not  even  a  gnat  to  quiver  in 
the  slant  sunrays.  Did  a  spider  run  over  those  dead  leaves,  I 
almost  fancy  I  could  hear  his  footfall.  The  creaking  of  the  sad 
dle,  the  soft  footfall  of  the  mare  upon  the  fir-needles,  jar  my 
ears.  I  seem  alone  in  a  dead  world.  A  dead  world ;  and  yet 
so  full  of  life,  if  I  had  eyes  to  see !  Above  my  head  every  fir 
needle  is  breathing,  breathing,  for  ever,  and  currents  unnumbered 
circulate  in  every  bough,  quickened  by  some  undiscovered 
miracle  ;  around  me  every  fir-stem  is  distilling  strange  juices, 
which  no  laboratory  of  man  can  make  ;  and  where  my  dull  eye 
sees  only  death,  the  eye  of  God  sees  boundless  life  and  motion, 
health  and  use. 

Slowly  I  wander  on  beneath  the  warm  roof  of  the  winter- 
garden,  and  meditate  upon  that  one  word — Life ;  and  specially 
on  all  that  Mr.  Lewes  has  written  so  well  thereon  of  late — for 
instance — 

"  We  may  consider  Life  itself  as  an  ever-increasing  identification 
with  Nature.  The  simple  cell,  from  which  the  plant  or  animal  arises, 
must  draw  light  and  heat  from  the  sun,  nutriment  from  the  surround 
ing  world,  or  else  it  will  remain  quiescent*  not  alive,  though  latent  with 
life  ;  as  the  grains  in  the  Egyptian  tombs,  which  after  lying  thousands 
of  years  in  those  sepulchres,  are  placed  in  the  earth,  and  smile  forth 
as  golden  wheat.  What  we  call  growth,  is  it  not  a  perpetual  absorp 
tion  of  Nature,  the  identification  of  the  individual  with  the  universal? 
And  may  we  not,  in  speculative  moods,  consider  Death  as  the  grand 
impatience  of  the  soul  to  free  itself  from  the  circle  of  individual 
activity — the  yearning  of  the  creature  to  be  united  with  the  Creator  ? 

"  As  with  Life,  so  with  knowledge,  which  is  intellectual  Life.  In 
the  early  days  of  man's  history,  Nature  and  her  marvellous  ongoings 
were  regarded  with  but  a  casual  and  careless  eye,  or  else  with  the 
merest  wonder.  It  was  late  before  profound  and  reverent  study  of 
her  laws  could  wean  man  from  impatient  speculations ;  and  now,  what 


MY  WINTER-GARDEN.  407 

is  our  intellectual  activity  based  on,  except  on  the  more  thorough 
mental  absorption  of  Nature  ?  When  that  absorption  is  completed, 
the  mystic  drama  will  be  sunny  clear,  and  all  Nature's  processes  be 
visible  to  man,  as  a  Divine  Effluence  and  Life." 

True  :  yet  not  all  the  truth.     But  who  knows  all  the  truth  ? 

Not  I.  "  We  see  through  a  glass  darkly,"  said  St.  Paul  of 
old ;  and  what  is  more,  dazzle  and  weary  our  eyes,  like  clumsy 
microscopists,  by  looking  too  long  and  earnestly  through  the 
imperfect  and  by  no  means  achromatic  lens.  Enough.  I  will 
think  of  something  else.  I  will  think  of  nothing  at  all — 

Stay.     There  was  a  sound  at  last ;  a  light  footfall. 

A  hare  races  towards  us  through  the  ferns,  her  great  bright 
eyes  full  of  terror,  her  ears  aloft  to  catch  some  sound  behind. 
She  sees  us,  turns  short,  and  vanishes  into  the  gloom.  The  mare 
pricks  up  her  ears  too,  listens,  and  looks :  but  not  the  way  the 
hare  has  gone.  There  is  something  more  coming ;  I  can  trust 
the  finer  sense  of  the  horse,  to  which  (and  no  wonder)  the 
Middle  Age  attributed  the  power  of  seeing  ghosts  and  fairies 
impalpable  to  man's  gross  eyes.  Beside,  that  hare  was  not 
travelling  in  search  of  food.  She  was  not  "  loping  "  along,  look 
ing  around  her  right  and  left,  but  galloping  steadily.  She  has 
been  frightened ;  she  has  been  put  up ;  but  what  has  put  her 
up  ?  And  there,  far  away  among  the  fir-stems,  rings  the  shriek 
of  a  startled  blackbird.  What  has  put  him  up  ? 

That,  old  mare,  at  sight  whereof  your  wise  eyes  widen  till 
they  are  ready  to  burst,  and  your  ears  are  first  shot  forward 
toward  your  nose,  and  then  laid  back  with  vicious  intent.  Stand 
still,  old  woman  !  Do  you  think  still,  after  fifteen  winters,  that 
you  can  catch  a  fox  ? 

A  fox,  it  is  indeed  ;  a  great  dog-fox,  as  red  as  the  fir-stems 
between  which  he  glides.  And  yet  his  legs  are  black  with  fresh 
peat  stains.  He  is  a  hunted  fox  :  but  he  has  not  been  up  long. 

The  mare  stands  like  a  statue :  but  I  can  feel  her  trembling 
between  my  knees.  Positively  he  does  not  see  us.  He  sits 
down  in  the  middle  of  a  ride,  turns  his  great  ears  right  and  left, 
and  then  scratches  one  of  them  with  his  hind  foot,  seemingly  to 
make  it  hear  the  better.  Now  he  is  up  again  and  on. 

Beneath  yon  firs, •some  hundred  yards  away,  standeth,  or  rather 
lieth,  for  it  is  on  dead  flat  ground,  the  famous  castle  of  Male- 
partus,  which  beheld  the  .base  murder  of  Lampe,  the  hare,  and 
many  a  seely  soul  beside.  I  know  it  well ;  a  patch  of  sand 
heaps,  mingled  with  great  holes,  amid  the  twining  fir  roots ;  an 
cient  home  of  the  last  of  the  wild  beasts.  And  thither,  unto 
Malepartus  safe  and  strong,  trots  Reinecke,  where  he  hopes  to 


408  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

be  snug  among;  the  labyrinthine  windings,  and  innumerable  start 
ing  holes,  as  the  old  apologue  has  it,  of  his  ballium,  covert-way, 
and  donjon  keep.  Full  blown  in  self-satisfaction  he  trots,  lifting 
his  toes  delicately,  and  carrying  his  brush  aloft,  as  full  of  cunning 
and  conceit  as  that  world-famous  ancestor  of  his,  whose  deeds  of 
unchivalry  were  the  delight,  if  not  the  model,  of  knight  and 
kaiser,  lady  and  burgher,  in  the  Middle  Age. 

Suddenly  he  halts  at  the  great  gate  of  Malepartus ;  examines 
it  with  his  nose  ;  goes  on  to  a  postern :  examines  that  also,  and 
then  another  and  another ;  while  I  perceive  afar,  projecting  from 
every  cave's  mouth,  the  red  and  green  end  of  a  new  fir-fagot. 
Ah  Reinecke  !  fallen  is  thy  conceit,  and  fallen  thy  tail  therewith. 
Thou  hast  worse  foes  to  deal  with  than  Bruin  the  bear,  or  Ise- 
grim  the  wolf,  or  any  foolish  brute  whom  thy  great  ancestor 
outwitted.  Man  the  many-counselled  has  been  beforehand  with 
thee ;  and  the  earths  are  stopped. 

One  moment  he  sits  down  to  meditate,  and  scratches  those 
trusty  counsellors,  his  ears,  as  if  he  would  tear  them  off,  "revolv 
ing  swift  thoughts  in  a  crafty  mind." 

He  has  settled  it  now.  He  is  up  and  off — and  at  what  a  pace ! 
Out  of  the  way,  Fauns  and  Hamadryads,  if  any  be  left  in  the 
forest.  What  a  pace  !  And  with  what  a  grace  beside  ! 

Oh  Reinecke,  beautiful  thou  art,  of  a  surety,  in  spite  of  thy 
great  naughtiness.  Art  thou  some  fallen  spirit,  doomed  to  be 
hunted  for  thy  sins  in  this  life,  and  in  some  future  life  rewarded 
for  thy  swiftness,  and  grace,  and  cunning,  by  being  made  a  very 
messenger  of  the  immortals  ?  Who  knows  ?  Not  I. 

I  am  rising  fast  to  Pistol's  vein.  Shall  I  ejaculate  ?  Shall  I 
notify  ?  Shall  I  waken  the  echoes  ?  Shall  I  break  the  grand 
silence  by  that  scream  which  the  vulgar  view-halloo  call  ? 

It  is  needless  ;  for  louder  and  louder  every  moment  swells  up 
a  sound  which  makes  my  heart  leap  into  my  mouth,  and  my 
mare  into  the  air. 

Music  ?  Well-beloved  soul  of  Hullah,  would  that  thou  wert 
here  this  day,  and  not  in  St.  Martin's  Hall,  to  hear  that  chorus, 
as  it  pours  round  the  fir-stems,  rings  against  the  roof  above, 
shatters  up  into  a  hundred  echoes,  till  the  air  is  live  with  sound ! 
You  love  madrigals,  and  whatever  Weelkes,  or  Wilbye,  or  Or 
lando  Gibbons  sang  of  old.  So  do  I.  Theirs  is  music  fit  for 
men :  worthy  of  the  age  of  heroes,  of  Drake  and  Raleigh, 
Spenser  and  Shakspeare :  but  oh  that  you  could  hear  this  mad 
rigal  !  If  you  must  have  "  four  parts,"  then  there  they  are. 
Deep-mouthed  bass,  rolling  along  the  ground  ;  rich  joyful  tenor  ; 
wild  wistful  alto ;  and  leaping  up  here  and  there  above  the 
throng  of  sounds,  delicate  treble  shrieks  and  trills  of  trembling 


MY  WINTER-GARDEN.  409 

joy.  I  know  not  whether  you  can  fit  it  into  your  laws  of  music, 
any  more  than  you  can  the  song  of  that  Ariel  sprite  who  dwells 
in  the  Eolian  harp,  or  the  roar  of  the  waves  on  the  rock,  or 

Myriads  of  rivulets  hurrying  through  the  lawn, 
,  And  murmur  of  innumerable  bees. 

But  music  it  is.  A  madrigal  ?  Rather  a  whole  opera  of  Der 
Freischutz — daemonic  element  and  all — to  judge  by  those  red 
lips,  fierce  eyes,  wild,  hungry  voices ;  and  such  as  should  make 
Reinecke,  had  he  strong  aesthetic  sympathies,  well  content  to  be 
hunted  from  his  cradle  to  his  grave,  that  such  sweet  sounds 
might  by  him  enrich  the  air.  Heroes  of  old  were  glad  to 
die,  if  but  some  votes  sacer  would  sing  their  fame  in  worthy 
strains;  and  shalt  not  thou  too  be  glad,  Reinecke?  Content 
thyself  with  thy  fate.  Music  soothes  care  !  let  it  soothe  thine,  as 
thou  runnest  for  thy  life  ;  thou  shalt  have  enough  of  it  in  the 
next  hour.  For  as  the  Etruscans  (says  Athenasus)  were  so 
luxurious  that  they  used  to  flog  their  slaves  to  the  sound  of  the 
flute,  so  shall  luxurious  Chanter  and  Challenger,  Sweet-lips  and 
Melody,  eat  thee  to  the  sound  of  rich  organ-pipes,  that  so  thou 
mayest, 

Like  that  old  fabled  swan,  in  music  die. 

And  now  appear,  dim  at  first  and  distant,  but  brightening  and 
nearing  fast,  many  a  right  good  fellow  and  many  a  right  good 
horse.  I  know  three  out  of  four  of  them,  their  private  histories, 
the  private  histories  of  their  horses :  and  could  tell  you  many  a 
good  story  of  them ;  but  shall  not,  being  an  English  gentleman, 
and  not  an  American  litterateur.  They  are  not  very  clever,  or 
very  learned,  or  very  any  thing,  except  gallant  men  :  but  they 
are  good  enough  company  for  me,  or  any  one  ;  and  each  has  his 
own  speciality  for  which  I  like  him.  That  huntsman  I  have 
known  for  fifteen  years,  and  sat  many  an  hour  beside  his  father's 
death-bed.  I  am  godfather  to  that  whip's  child.  I  have  seen 
the  servants  of  the  hunt,  as  I  have  the  hounds,  grow  up  round 
me  for  two  generations,  and  I  look  on  them  as  old  friends — and 
like  to  look  into  their  brave,  honest,  weather-beaten  faces.  That 
red  coat  there,  I  knew  him  when  he  was  a  school-boy ;  and  now 
he  is  a  captain  in  the  Guards,  and  won  his  Victoria  Cross  at 
Inkermann  :  that  bright  green  coat  is  the  best  farmer,  as  well  as 
the  hardest  rider,  for  many  a  mile  round  ;  one  who  plays,  as  he 
works,  with  all  his  might,  and  might  have  made  a  beau  sabreur 
and  colonel  of  dragoons.  So  might  that  black  coat,  who  now 
brews  good  beer,  and  stands  up  for  the  poor  at  the  Board  of 
Guardians,  and  rides,  like  the  green  coat,  as  well  as  he  works. 

18 


410  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

That  other  black  coat  is  a  county  banker ;  but  he  knows  more 
of  the  fox  than  the  fox  knows  of  himself,  and  where  the  hounds 
are,  there  will  he  be  this  day.  That  red  coat  has  hunted  kanga 
roo  in  Australia ;  that  one  has — but  what  matter  to  you  who 
each  man  is  ?  Enough  that  each  can  tell  me  a  good  story,  wel 
come  me  cheerfully,  and  give  me  out  here,  in  the  wild  forest,  the 
wholesome  feeling  of  being  at  home  among  friends. 

And  I  am  going  with  them  ? 

Certainly.  He  who  falls  in  with  hounds  running,  and  follows 
them  not  as  far  as  he  can  (business  permitting,  of  course,  in  a 
business  country,)  is  either  more  or  less  than  man.  So  I,  who 
am  neither  more  nor  less,  but  simply  a  man  like  my  neighbours, 
turn  my  horse's  head  to  go. 

There  is  music,  again,  if  you  will  listen,  in  the  soft  tread  of 
these  hundred  horse-hoofs  upon  the  spungy,  vegetable  soil.  They 
are  trotting  now  in  "  common  time."  You  may  hear  the  whole 
Croats'  March  (the  finest  trotting  march  in  the  world)  played  by 
those  iron  heels ;  the  time,  as  it  does  in  the  Croats'  March,  break 
ing  now  and  then,  plunging,  jingling,  struggling  through  heavy 
ground,  bursting  for  a  moment  into  a  jubilant  canter  as  it  reaches 
a  sound  spot.  But  that  time  does  not  last  long.  The  hounds 
feather  a  moment  round  Malepartus,  puzzled  by  the  windings  of 
Reinecke's  footsteps.  Look  at  Virginal,  five  yards  ahead  of  the 
rest,  as  her  stem  flourishes,  and  her  pace  quickens.  Hark  to 
Virginal !  as  after  one  whimper,  she  bursts  out  full-mouthed, 
and  the  rest  dash  up  and  away  in  chorus,  madder  than  ever,  and 
we  after  them  up  the  ride. 

Listen  to  the  hoof-tune  now.  The  common  time  is  changed 
to  triple  ;  and  the  heavy,  steady  thud — thud — thud — tells  one 
even  blindfold  that  we  are  going.  *  *  *  * 

Going,  and  "  going  to  go."  For  a  mile  of  ride  have  I  gal 
loped,  tangled  among  men  and  horses,  and  cheered  by  occasional 
glimpses  of  the  white-spotted  backs  in  front ;  and  every  minute 
the  pace  quickens.  Now  the  hounds  swing  off  the  ride,  and 
through  the  fir-trees ;  and  now  it  shall  be  seen  who  can  ride  the 
winter-garden. 

I  make  no  comparisons.  I  feel  due  respect  for  "  the  counties." 
I  have  tasted  of  old,  though  sparingly,  the  joys  of  grass ;  but 
this  I  do  say,  as  said  the  gentlemen  of  the  New  Forest  fifty 
years  ago,  in  the  days  of  its  glory,  when  the  forest  and  the  court 
were  one,  that  a  man  may  be  able  to  ride  in  Leicestershire,  and 
yet  not  able  to  ride  in  the  forest.  It  is  one  thing  to  race  over 
grass,  light  or  heavy,  seeing  a  mile  ahead  of  you,  and  coming  up 
to  a  fence  which,  however  huge  is  honest,  and  another  to  ride 
where  we  are  going  now.  If  you  will  pay  money  enough  for 


MY  WINTER-GARDEN.  411 

your  horses  ;  if  you  will  keep  them  in  racing  condition  ;  and 
having  done  so,  simply  stick  on,  (being,  of  course,  a  valiant  man 
and  true,)  then  you  can  ride  grass,  and 

Drink  delight  of  battle  with  your  peers, 

or  those  of  the  realm,  in  Leicestershire,  Rutland,  or  Northamp 
ton.  But  here  more  is  wanted,  and  yet  not  so  much.  Not  so 
much,  because  the  pace  is  seldom  as  great :  but  more,  because 
you  are  in  continual  petty  danger,  requiring  continual  thought, 
promptitude,  experience.  There  it  is  the  best  horse  who  wins  ; 
but  here  it  is  the  shrewdest  man.  Therefore,  let  him  who  is 
fearful  and  faint-hearted  keep  to  the  rides ;  and  not  only  he,  but 
he  who  has  a  hot  horse  ;  he  who  has  no  hand ;  he  who  has  no 
heel,  or  a  horse  who  knows  not  what  heel  means  ;  for  this  riding 
is  more  like  Australian  bush-coursing,  or  Bombay  hog-hunting, 
than  the  pursuit  of  the  wily  animal  over  a  civilized  country,  as 
it  appears  in  Leech's  inimitable  caricatures. 

Therefore,  of  the  thirty  horsemen,  some  twenty  wisely  keep 
the  ride,  and  no  shame  to  them.  They  can  go  well  elsewhere ; 
they  will  go  wrell  (certainly  they  will  leave  me  behind)  when  we 
reach  the  enclosures  three  miles  off:  but  here,  they  are  wise  in 
staying  on  terra  firma. 

But  there  are  those  who  face  terrain  infirmam.  Off  turns  our 
master,  riding,  as  usual,  as  if  he  did  not  know  that  he  was  riding 
at  all,  and  thereby  showing  how  well  he  rides.  Off  turns  the 
huntsman  ;  the  brave  green  coat  on  the  mouse  mare  ;  the  brave 
black  coat  on  the  black  mare.  Mark  those  two  last,  if  you  do 
not  know  the  country,  for  where  the  hounds  are  there  will  they 
be  to  the  last.  Off  turns  a  tall  Irish  baronet ;  the  red  coat  who 
has  ridden  in  Australia ;  an  old  gentleman,  who  has  just  informed 
me  that  he  was  born  close  to  Billesden-Coplow,  and  looks  as  if 
he  could  ride  anywhere,  even  to  the  volcanoes  of  the  moon,  which 
must  be  a  rough  country,  to  look  at  it  through  a  telescope.  Off 
turns  a  gallant  young  Borderer,  who  has  seen  bogs  and  wolds 
ere  now,  but  at  present  grows  mustachios  in  a  militia  regiment 
at  Aldershot :  a  noble  youth  to  look  at.  May  he  prosper  this 
day  and  all  days,  and  beget  brave  children  to  hunt  with  Lord 
Elcho  when  he  is  dead  and  gone. 

And  off  turn  poor  humble  I,  on  the  old  screwed  mare.  I 
know  I  shall  be  left  behind,  ridden  past,  possibly  ridden  over, 
laughed  to  scorn  by  swells  on  hundred-and-fifty-guinea  horses  ; 
but  I  know  the  winter-garden,  and  I  want  a  gallop.  Half  an 
hour  will  do  for  me  ;  but  it  must  be  a  half  hour  of  mad,  thought 
less  animal  life,  and  then,  if  I  can  go  no  further,  I  will  walk  the 
mare  home  contentedly,  and  do  my  duty  in  that  station  of  life  to 


412  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

which  Providence  has  been  pleased  to  call  me.  But  while  my 
hand  finds  aught  to  do,  I  must  do  it  with  all  my  might.  Life  is 
very  short ;  and  the  truest  philosophy  is,  to  waste  none  of  it, 
but  to  cram  the  maximum  of  play,  as  well  as  of  work,  into  the 
minimum  of  time. 

So  away  we  go  through  a  labyrinth  of  fir-stems  and,  what  is 
worse,  fir-stumps,  which  need  both  your  eyes  and  your  horse's  at 
every  moment;  and  woe  to  the  "anchorite,"  as  old  Bunbury 
names  him,  who  carries  his  nose  in  the  air,  and  his  fore  feet  well 
under  him.  Woe  to  the  self-willed  or  hard-hided  horse  who 
cannot  take  the  slightest  hint  of  the  heel,  and  wince  hind  legs 
or  fore  out  of  the  way  of  those  jagged  points  which  lie  in  wait 
for  him.  Woe,  in  fact,  to  all  who  are  clumsy  or  cowardly,  or  in 
anywise  not  "  masters  of  the  situation." 

Pleasant  riding  it  is,  though,  if  you  dare  look  anywhere  but 
over  your  horse's  nose,  under  the  dark  roof,  between  the  red  fir- 
pillars,  in  that  rich  subdued  light.  Now  we  plunge  into  a  gloomy 
dell,  wherein  is  no  tinkling  rivulet,  ever  pure  ;  but  instead  a  bog, 
hewn  out  into  a  chess-board  of  squares,  parted  by  deep  nar 
row  ditches  some  twenty  feet  apart.  Blundering  among  the 
stems  we  go,  fetlock -deep  in  peat,  and  jumping  at  every  third 
stride  one  of  the  said  uncanny  gripes,  half-hidden  in  long  has 
sock  grass.  Oh  Aira  ccespitosa,  most  stately  and  most  variable 
of  British  grasses,  why  will  you  always  grow  where  you  are  not 
wanted?  Through  you  the  mare  all  but  left  her  hind  legs  in 
that  last  gripe.  Through  you  the  red  coat  ahead  of  me,  avoid 
ing  one  of  your  hassocks,  jumped  with  his  horse's  nose  full  butt 
against  a  fir  stem,  and  stopped, 

As  one  that  is  struck  dead 
By  lightning,  ere  he  falls. 

as  I  shall  soon,  in  spite  of  the  mare's  cleverness.  Would  we 
were  out  of  this ! 

Out  of  it  we  shall  be  soon.  I  see  daylight  ahead  at  last,  bright 
between  the  dark  stems.  Up  a  steep  slope  and  over  a  bank, 
which  is  not  very  big,  but  being  composed  of  loose  gravel  and 
peat  mould,  gives  down  with  the  first  man  who  rides  at  it,  send 
ing  him  softly  head  over  heels  in  the  heather,  and  leaving  us  a 
sheer  gap  to  gallop  through,  and  out  on  the  open  moor. 

Grand  old  moor!  stretching  your  brown  flats  right  away 
toward  Windsor  for  many  a  mile. — Far  to  our  right  is  the  new 
Wellington  College,  looking  stately  enough  here  all  alone  in  the 
wilderness,  in  spite  of  its  two  ugly  towers  and  pinched  waist. — 
When  shall  we  have  a  decent  public  building.  I  can't  stop  to 
meditate  on  so  very  remote  a  chance.  Close  over  us  is  the  long 


MY  WINTER-GARDEN.  418 

fir-fringed  ridge  of  Easthampstead,  ending  suddenly  in  Caesar's 
camp ;  and  we  are  racing  up  the  Roman  road,  which  the  clods 
of  these  parts,  unable  to  give  a  better  account  of  it,  call  the 
Devil's  Highway. 

Racing  indeed ;  for  as  Reinecke  gallops  up  the  narrow  heath 
er  fringed  pathway,  he  brushes  off  his  scent  upon  the  twigs  at 
every  stride,  and  the  hounds  race  after  him,  showing  no  head 
indeed,  and  keeping  for  convenience,  in  one  long  line  upon  the 
track  ;  but  going,  head  up,  stems  down,  at  a  pace  which  no  horse 
can  follow. — I  only  hope  they  may  not  overrun  the  scent ! 

They  have  overrun  it ;  halt,  and  put  their  heads  down  a  mo 
ment.  But  with  one  swift  cast  in  full  gallop  they  have  hit  it  off 
again,  fifty  yards  away  in  the  heather,  long  ere  we  are  up  to 
them  ;  for  those  hounds  can  hunt  a  fox  because  they  are  not 
hunted  themselves,  and  so  have  learnt  to  trust  themselves,  and 
act  for  themselves ;  as  boys  should  learn  at  school,  even  at  the 
risk  of  a  mistake  or  two.  Now  they  are  showing  head  indeed, 
down  a  half  cleared  valley,  and  over  a  few  ineffectual  turnips, 
withering  in  the  peat,  a  patch  of  growing  civilization  in  the. heart 
of  the  wilderness;  and  then  over  the  brook — woe's  me  !  and  we 
must  follow — if  we  can. 

Down  we  come  to  it,  over  a  broad  sheet  of  burnt  ground,  where 
a  week  ago  the  young  firs  were  blazing,  crackling,  spitting  tur 
pentine  for  a  mile  on  end.  Now  it  lies  all  black  and  ghastly, 
with  hard  charred  stumps,  like  ugly  teeth,  or  caltrops  of  old,  set 
to  lame  charging  knights.  Over  a  stiff  furze-grown  bank,  which 
one  has  to  jump  on  and  off — if  one  can ;  and  over  the  turnip 
patch,  breathless. 

Now  we  are  at  the  brook,  dyke,  lode,  drain,  or  whatever  you 
call  it.  Much  as  I  value  agricultural  improvements,  I  wish  its 
making  had  been  postponed  for  at  least  this  one  year.  Shall  we 
race  at  it,  as  at  Rosy  or  Wissendine,  and  so  over  in  one  long 
stride  ?  Would  that  we  could !  But  racing  at  it  is  impossible  j 
for  we  stagger  up  to  it  almost  knee-deep  in  peat,  and  find  it 
some  fifteen  feet  broad  and  six  feet  deep  of  newly-cut  yellow 
clay,  with  a  foul  runnel  at  the  bottom.  The  brave  green  coat 
finds  a  practicable  place,  our  master  another ;  and  both  jump, 
not  over,  but  in ;  and  then  out  again,  not  by  a  leap,  but  by  claw- 
ings  as  of  a  gigantic  cat.  The  second  whip  goes  in  before  me, 
and  somehow  vanishes  headlong.  I  see  the  water  shoot  up  from 
under  his  shoulders  full  ten  feet  high,  and  his  horse  sitting  dis 
consolate  on  his  tail  at  the  bottom,  like  a  great  dog.  However, 
they  are  up  again  and  out,  painted  of  a  fair  raw-ochre  hue  ;  and 
I  have  to  follow,  in  fear  and  trembling,  expecting  to  be  painted 
in  like  wise. 


414  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

Well,  I  am  in,  and  out  again,  I  don't  know  how :  but  this  I 
know,  that  I  am  in  a  great  bog.  Natural  bogs,  red,  brown,  or 
green,  I  know  from  childhood,  and  never  was  taken  in  by  one  in 
my  life :  but  this  has  taken  me  in,  in  all  senses.  Why  do  peo 
ple  pare  and  trim  bogs  before  draining  them? — thus  destroying 
the  light  coat  of  tenacious  stuff  on  the  top,  which  Nature  put 
there  on  purpose  to  help  poor  horsemen  over,  and  the  blanket  of 
red  bog-moss,  which  is  meant  as  a  fair  warning  to  all  who  know 
the  winter-garden.  However,  I  am  no  worse  off  than  my  neigh 
bours.  Here  we  are,  ten  valiant  men,  all  bogged  together  ;  and 
who  knows  how  deep  the  peat  may  be  ? 

I  jump  off  and  lead,  considering  that  a  horse  plus  a  man 
weighs  more  than  a  horse  alone ;  so  do  one  or  two  more.  The 
rest  plunge  bravely  on,  whether  because  of  their  hurry,  or  like 
Child  Waters  in  the  ballad,  «  for  fyling  of  their  feet." 

However,  "  all  things  do  end,"  as  Caiiyle  pithily  remarks 
somewhere  in  his  French  Revolution  ;  and  so  does  this  bog.  I 
wish  this  gallop  would  end  too.  How  long  have  we  been  going  ? 
There  is  no  time  to  take  out  a  watch :  but  I  fancy  the  mare  flags ; 
I  am  sure  my  back  aches  with  standing  in  my  stirrups.  I  be 
come  desponding.  I  am  sure  I  shall  never  see  this  fox  killed ; 
sure  I  shall  not  keep  up  five  minutes  longer ;  sure  I  shall  have 
a  fall  soon  ;  sure  I  shall  ruin  the  mare's  fetlocks  in  the  ruts.  I 
am  bored.  I  wish  it  was  all  over,  and  I  safe  at  home  in  bed. 

Then  why  do  I  not  stop  ? 

I  cannot  tell.  That  thud,  thud,  thud,  through  moss  and  mire, 
has  become  an  element  of  my  being,  a  temporary  necessity,  and 
go  I  must.  I  do  not  ride  the  mare ;  the  Wild  Huntsman,  invisi 
ble  to  me,  rides  her  ;  and  I,  like  Burger's  Lenore,  am  carried 
on  in  spite  of  myself,  "  tramp,  tramp  along  the  land,  splash,  splash 
along  the  sea." 

By  which  I  do  not  at  all  mean  that  the  mare  has  run  away 
with  me.  On  the  contrary,  I  am  afraid  I  have  been  shaking  her 
up  during  the  last  five  minutes  more  than  once.  But  the  spirit 
of  Odin,  "  the  mover,"  "  the  goer,"  (for  that  is  his  etymology,) 
whom  German  sages  connect  much  with  the  Wild  Huntsman, 
has  got  hold  of  my  midriff  and  marrow,  and  go  I  must,  for  "  The 
Goer  "  has  taken  me. 

I  look  round  for  the  field.  Scattered  wide  we  are  now ;  a  red 
coat  gleaming  like  a  spark  of  fire  on  every  knoll,  in  every  dell, 
behind  me  and  before  me  too  ;  for  some  of  the  road  riders  have 
caught  us  up  at  a  turn,  and  all  are  going  well,  though  going 
wild. 

What  is  this  before  us  ?  A  green  wall  of  self-sown  firs,  which 
will  scatter  us  still  more. 


MY  WINTER-GARDEN.  415 

There  they  stand  in  thousands,  the  sturdy  Scots,  colonizing 
the  desert  in  spite  of  frost,  and  gales,  and  barrenness  ;  and 
clustering  together,  too,  as  Scotsmen  always  do  abroad,  little 
and  big,  every  one  under  his  neighbour's  lee,  according  to  the 
good  old  proverb  of  their  native  land,  "  Caw  me,  and  I'll  caw 
thee." 

I  respect  them,  those  Scotch  firs.  I  delight  in  their  forms, 
from  James  the  First's  gnarled  giants,  up  in  Bramshill  Park — 
the  only  place  in  England  where  a  painter  can  learn  what  Scotch 
firs  are — down  to  the  little  green  pyramids  which  stand  up  out 
of  the  heather,  triumphant  over  tyranny,  and  the  strange  woes  of 
an  untoward  youth.  Seven  years  on  an  average  have  most  of 
them  spent  in  ineffectual  efforts  to  become  a  foot  high.  Nibbled 
off  by  hares,  trodden  *  down  by  cattle, 'cut  down  by  turf-parers, 
seeing  hundreds  of  their  brethren  cut  up  and  carried  off  in  the 
turf-fuel,  they  are  as  gnarled  and  stubbed  near  the  ground  as  an 
old  thorn-bush  in  a  pasture.  But  they  have  conquered  at  last, 
and  are  growing  away,  eighteen  inches  a  year,  with  fair  green 
brushes  silver-tipt,  reclothing  the  wilderness  with  a  vegetation 
which  it  has  not  seen  for — how  many  thousand  years  ? 

No  man  can  tell.  For  when  last  the  Scotch  fir  was  indigenous 
to  England,  and  mixed  with  the  larch,  stretched  in  one  vast  forest 
from  Norfolk  into  Wales,  England  was  not  as  it  is  now.  Snow- 
don  was,  it  may  be,  fifteen  thousand  feet  in  height,  and  from  the 
edges  of  its  glaciers  the  marmot  and  the  musk  ox,  the  elk  and 
the  bear,  wandered  down  into  the  Lowlands,  and  the  hyena  and 
the  tiger  dwelt  in  those  caves  where  fox  and  badger  only  now 
abide.  And  how  did  the  Scotch  fir  die  out  ?  Did  the  whole 
land  sink  slowly  from  its  sub- Alpine  elevation  into  a  warmer 
climate  below  ?  Or  was  it  never  raised  at  all  ?  Did  some  change 
of  the  Atlantic  sea-flow  turn  for  the  first  time  the  warm  Gulf 
Stream  to  these  shores ;  and  with  its  soft  sea-breezes  melt  away 
the  "Age  of  Ice,"  till  glaciers  and  pines,  marmots  and  musk  oxen, 
perspired  to  death,  and  vanished  for  an  CEon  ?  Who  knows  ? 
Not  I.  But  of  the  fact  there  can  be  no  doubt.  Whether  as  we 
hold  traditionally  here,  the  Scotch  fir  was  reintroduced  by  James 
the  First  when  he  built  Bramshill  for  Raleigh's  hapless  pet, 
Henry  the  Prince,  or  whatever  may  have  been  the  date  of  their 
reintroduction,  here  they  are  and  no  one  can  turn  them  out.  In 
countless  thousands  the  winged  seeds  float  down  the  southwest 
gales  from  the  older  trees ;  and  every  seed  which  falls  takes  root 
in  ground  which,  however  unable  to  bear  broad-leaved  trees,  is 
ready  by  long  rest  for  the  seeds  of  the  needle-leaved  ones. 
Thousands  perish  yearly ;  but  the  eastward  march  of  the  whole, 


416  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

up  hill  and  down  dale,  is  sure  and  steady  as  that  of  Lynceus' 
Goths  in  Goethe's  Helena : — 

Ein  lang  und  breites  Volksgewicbt, 
Der  erste  wusste  vom  letzen  nicht. 
Der  erste  fiel,  der  zweite  stand, 
Des  dritten  Lanze  war  zur  Hand, 
Ein  jeder  hundertfach  gestarkt ; 
Erschlagene  Tausend  unbemerkt. 

Till,  as  you  stand  upon  some  eminence,  you  see,  stretching  to 
the  eastward  of  each  tract  of  older  trees  a  long  cloud  of  younger 
ones,  like  a  green  comet's  tail — I  wish  their  substance  was  as 
yielding  this  day.  Truly  beautiful— grand,  indeed,  to  me  it  is — 
to  see  young  live  Nature  thus  carrying  on  a  great  savage  process 
in  the  heart  of  this  old  and  seemingly  all-artificial  English  land ; 
and  reproducing  here,  as  surely  as  in  the  Australian  bush,  a 
native  forest,  careless  of  mankind.  Still,  I  wish  it  were  easier 
to  ride  through.  Stiff  are  those  Scotchmen,  and  close  and  stout 
they  stand  by  each  other,  and  claw  at  you  as  you  twist  through 
them,  the  biggest  aiming  at  your  head,  or  even  worse,  at  your 
knees ;  while  the  middle-sized  slip  their  brushes  between  your 
thigh  and  the  saddle,  and  the  little  babies  tickle  your  horse's 
stomach,  or  twine  about  his  fore-feet.  Whish— whish ;  I  am 
enveloped  in  what  seems  an  atmosphere  of  scrubbing-brushes. 
Fain  would  I  shut  my  eyes :  but  dare  not,  or  I  shall  ride  against 
a  tree.  Whish — whish  ;  alas  for  the  horse  which  cannot  wind 
and  turn  like  a  hare  !  Hounds,  huntsmen,  all  are  invisible ;  only 
by  the  swishing  and  crashing  of  boughs  right  and  left  do  I  know 
that  there  are  a  dozen  men  in  the  same  torment  as  I,  and  calling 
it,  after  the  manner  of  Englishmen,  sport. 

Plunge— stagger.  What  is  this  ?  A  broad  line  of  ruts  ;  per 
haps  some  Celtic  trackway,  two  thousand  years  old,  now  matted 
over  with  firs ;  dangerous  enough  out  on  the  open  moor,  when 
only  masked  by  a  line  of  higher  and  darker  heath :  but  doubly 
dangerous  now  when  masked  by  dark  undergrowth.  You  must 
find  your  own  way  here,  mare.  I  will  positively  have  nothing 
to  do  with  it.  I  disclaim  all  responsibility.  There  are  the  reins 
on  your  neck  ;  do  what  you  will,  only  do  something — and  if  you 
can,  get  forward,  and  not  back. 

There  is  daylight  at  last,  and  fresh  air.  We  gallop  contemp 
tuously  through  the  advanced  skirmishers  of  the  Scotch  invading 
army  ;  find  a  practicable  trackway  through  a  long  dreary  yellow 
bog,  too  wet  for  firs  to  root  in,  and  are  away  again  "  a  streamer." 
Now  a  streamer  is  produced  in  this  wise.  There  is  but  one  pos 
sible  gap  in  a  bank,  one  possible  ford  in  a  brook ;  one  possible 


MY  WINTER-GARDEN.  417 

path  in  a  cover ;  and  as  each  man  has  to  wait  till  the  man  before 
him  gets  through,  and  then  gallops  on,  each  man  loses  twenty 
yards  or  more  on  the  man  before  him  :  wherefore,  by  all  laws  of 
known  arithmetic,  if  ten  men  tail  through  a  gap,  then  will  the 
last  of  the  ten  find  himself  two  hundred  yards  behind  the  fore 
most,  which  process  several  times  repeated,  produces  the  phe 
nomenon  called  a  streamer  ;  viz :  twenty  men  galloping  absurdly 
as  hard  as  they  can,  in  a  line  half  a  mile  long,  and  in  humours 
which  are  celestial  in  the  few  foremost,  contented  in  the  central, 
and  gradually  becoming  darker  in  the  tailmost ;  till  in  the  last 
man,  viz  :  myself,  they  assume  a  hue  altogether  Tartarean. 

Patter,  patter,  plunge,  plunge,  squash,  squash.  How  shall  I 
ever  catch  up  those  hounds  ?  Catch  up  even  the  middle  man  of 
that  line,  of  which  every  man  is  going  as  fast  as  I,  and  probably 
could  go  faster,  as  I  am  too  sure  I  could  not  ? 

Pluck  and  luck  may  do  it.     And  if  not,  what  matter  ? 

Luck  may  do  it.  The  hounds  may  turn  a  little.  And  so  they 
do ;  swinging  round  yon  brown  brow,  alas  !  nearly  half  a  mile 
oft*.  Now  lor  it !  Plunge  out  of  the  trackway,  over  the  ruts, 
and  hold  up,  old  lass,  over  the  open  heath.  A  fig  for  stumps, 
rabbit  burrows,  and  the  trackways  of  the  extinct  Celt.  Five 
minutes  more  has  brought  me  abreast  of  the  middle  man  ;  but 
the  hounds  swing  the  opposite  way,  and  I  have  lost  rather  more 
than  I  gained. 

Never  mind,  try  it  once  more.  The  last  tack  was  to  larboard, 
this  shall  be  to  starboard  ;  and  I  see  a  slackening  in  the  pace  ;  and 
with  good  reason.  Before  us  is  the  end  of  the  winter-garden, 
whose  boundary  wall  is  by  no  means  like  that  of  Milton's  Eden ; 
but  a  huge  brown  bank,  bristling  with  black  willow ;  and,  as  is 
the  fashion  of  the  winter-garden,  the  ditch  towards  the  moor. 
Now  let  pluck  supply  what  luck  could  not. 

I  see  the  first  whip  make  a  rush.     What  can  turn  him  ?     Over 

he  goes  ;  over  goes  Sir ;  over  our  master ;  over  the  brave 

green  coat ;  over  the  brave  black  one ;  over  another  red  coat, 
which  must  be  the  Borderer,  or  the  old  gentleman  from  "  the 
counties  ; "  I  am  too  far  off,  alas  !  to  see  which.  But  "  the  rest 
are  scattered  far  and  wide,  by  mount,  by  stream  " — and  if  it 
were  there,  "  by  sea  " — looking  for  that  weaker  place — which  is 
not  to  be  found. 

Now  for  it,  old  woman  !  Old  as  you  are,  your  loins  are  strong ; 
and  you  know  me,  and  I  you.  We  pull  bridle  a  little  as  we  near 
the  fence  ;  it  will  not  do  to  come  up  blown,  and  she  likes  to  have 
a  good  stare  at  a  place  before  passing  it.  .  .  .  Well,  my  dear, 
it  is  very  big :  but  practicable,  in  the  sense  in  which  Mr.  Asshe- 
ton  Smith  used  to  apply  that  epithet ;  that  is  to  say,  "  If  you 

18* 


418  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

fall  at  it,  you  will  probably  fall  on  the  right  side."  "  Come  along, 
mare  !  you  know  you  can  do  it ;  and  if  you  can't,  you  can  try !  " 
Ay,  speak  to  your  horse  loudly,  cheerfully,  confidently,  if  you 
•want  to  know  what  he  can  do.  The  magic  of  the  human  voice 
tells  on  him  as  well  as  on  man.  Silent  himself,  voice  is  to  him 
a  miracle,  an  inspiration.  Think  of  it.  Your  horse  can't  talk ; 
but  he  finds  that  you  can.  He  feels  that  he  carries  a  nobler,  a 
wiser  being  than  himself,  one  who  can  make  him  "  above  himself 
exalt  himself,"  and  dares  and  does — as  she  will.  She  is  straight 
at  it  now,  her  feet  on  the  ditch  brink.  Steady  hand !  and  in 
with  the  spurs. 

A  pause,  a  heave,  a  long  leap,  a  moment's  clawing  and  strug 
gling,  cowbacked,  upon  the  top  of  the  bank,  which  seems  half  an 
hour  long ;  and  we  plunge  upon  our  knees  into  the  field,  pick 
ourselves  up,  and  away  again ;  rattling  among  swede  turnips  ; 
over  a  hurdle  into  a  flock  of  astounded  sheep ;  and  out  again,  a 
deep  drop  into  a  peaty  meadow.  The  mare's  fore  feet  stick 
deep  into  the  turf  the  moment  they  touch  it,  as  into  tar,  and  the 
forward  impulse  sends  her  gently  sprawling  on  her  head. 

Feeling  both  my  heels  touch  the  ground,  as  I  sit  in  the  saddle, 
I  consider  it  time  to  step  on  shore.  As  I  lift  my  leg  over,  she 
rises  indignantly,  chucks  me  head  over  heels,  and  stands  looking 
at  me  with  surprise  and  contempt.  See  what  comes  of  being 
prudent,  and  thinking  of  one's  wife  and  family.  I  had  much 
better  have  sat  the  mare  patiently,  and  faced  the  chance  of  her 
rolling  on  me.  However,  she  has  not  (as  I  expected)  trodden 
off'  the  fore  shoes  with  her  hind  ones ;  so  there  is  no  great  harm 
done,  certainly  not  to  my  old  coat  and  hat  which  are  long  past 
harming. 

The  hounds,  moreover,  have  obligingly  waited  for  us  two  fields 
on.  For  the  cold  wet  pastures  which  we  are  entering  do  not 
carry  the  scent  as  the  heather  did,  in  which  Reinecke,  as  he  gal 
loped,  brushed  off  his  perspiration  against  every  twig ;  and  the 
hounds  are  now  flemishing  up  and  down  by  the  side  of  the 
brown  alder-fringed  brook  which  parts  the  counties.  I  can  hear 
the  flap  and  snort  of  the  dogs'  nostrils  as  they  canter  round  me ; 
and  I  like  it.  It  is  exciting ;  but  why — who  can  tell  ? 

What  beautiful  creatures  they  are,  too!  Next  to  a  Greek 
statue  (I  mean  a  real  old  Greek  one ;  for  I  am  a  thoroughly 
anti-preraphaelite  benighted  pagan  heathen  in  taste,  and  intend 
some  day  to  get  up  a  Cinque-Cento  Club,  for  the  total  abolition 
of  Gothic  art) — next  to  a  Greek  statue,  I  say,  I  know  few  such 
combinations  of  grace  and  strength,  as  in  a  fine  foxhound.  It  is 
the  beauty  of  the  Theseus — light  and  yet  massive ;  and  light  not 
in  spite  of  its  masses,  but  on  account  of  the  perfect  disposition  of 


MY  W1NTER-GAEDEN.  419 

them.  I  do  not  care  for  grace  in  man,  woman,  or  animal,  which 
is  obtained  (as  in  the  old  German  painters)  at  the  expense  of 
honest  flesh  and  blood.  It  may  be  all  very  pure,  and  unearthly, 
and  saintly,  and  what  not :  but  it  is  not  healthy ;  and  therefore 
it  is  not  really  High  Art,  let  it  call  itself  such  as  much  as  it  likes. 
The  highest  art  must  be  that  in  which  the  outward  is  the  most 
perfect  symbol  of  the  inward ;  and  therefore  a  healthy  soul  can 
be  only  exprest  by  a  healthy  body  ;  and  starved  limbs  and  a 
hydrocephalous  forehead  must  be  either  taken  as  incorrect  sym 
bols  of  spiritual  excellence,  or  as  (what  they  were  really  meant 
for)  symbols  of  certain  spiritual  diseases  which  were  in  the  Mid 
dle  Age  considered  as  ecclesiastical  graces  and  virtues.  Where 
fore  I  like  pagan  and  naturalist  art ;  consider  Titian  and  Correggio 
as  unappreciated  geniuses,  whose  excellences  the  world  will  in 
some  saner  mood  rediscover ;  hold,  in  direct  opposition  to  Rio, 
that  Rafaelle  improved  steadily  all  his  life  through,  and  that  his 
noblest  works  are  not  those  somewhat  simpering  Madonnas  and 
somewhat  impish  Bambinos  (very  lovely  though  they  are,)  but 
those  great,  coarse,  naturalist,  Protestant  cartoons,  which  (with 
Andrea  Mantegna's  Heathen  Triumph)  Cromwell  saved  for  the 
British  nation.  I  expect  no  one  to  agree  with  all  this  for  the 
next  quarter  of  a  century ;  but  after  that  I  have  hopes.  The 
world  will  grow  tired  of  pretending  to  admire  Manichasan  pictures 
in  an  age  of  natural  science,  and  of  building  churches  on  the 
Popish  model,  to  be  used  for  Protestant  worship ;  and  art  will 
let  the  dead  bury  their  dead,  and  beginning  again  where  Michael 
Angelo  and  Rafaelle  left  off,  work  forward  into  a  nobler,  truer, 
freer,  and  more  divine  school  than  the  world  has  yet  seen — at 
least,  so  I  hope. 

And  all  this  has  grown  out  of  those  foxhounds.  "Why  not  ? 
Theirs  is  the  sort  of  form  which  expresses  to  me  what  I  want  art 
to  express — Nature  not  limited,  but  developed,  by  high  civiliza 
tion.  The  old  savage  ideal  of  beauty  was  the  lion,  type  of  mere 
massive  force.  That  was  succeeded  by  an  over-civilized  ideal, 
say  the  fawn,  type  of  delicate  grace.  By  cunning  breeding  and 
choosing,  through  long  centuries,  man  has  combined  both,  and  has 
created  the  foxhound,  lion  and  fawn  in  one.  Look  at  that  old 
hound,  who  stands  doubtful,  looking  up  at  his  master  for  advice. 
Look  at  the  severity,  delicacy,  lightness  of  every  curve.  His 
head  is  finer  than  a  deer's ;  his  hind  legs  tense  as  steel  springs ; 
his  fore  legs  straight  as  arrows :  and  yet  see  the  depth  of  chest, 
the  sweep  of  loin,  the  breadth  of  paw,  the  mass  of  arm  and 
thigh ;  and  if  you  have  an  eye  for  form,  look  at  the  absolute 
majesty  of  his  attitude  at  this  moment.  Majesty  is  the  only 
word  for  it.  If  he  were  six  feet  high,  instead  of  twenty-three 


420  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

inches,  with  what  animal  on  earth  could  you  compare  him  ?  Is 
it  not  a  joy  to  see  such  a  thing  alive  ?  It  is  to  me,  at  least.  I 
would  like  to  have  one  in  my  study  all  day  long,  as  I  would  have 
a  statue  or  a  picture  ;  and  when  Mr.  Morrell  gave  (as  they  say) 
two  hundred  guineas  for  Hercules  alone,  I  believe  the  dog  was 
well  worth  the  money,  only  to  look  at.  But  I  am  a  minute  philo 
sopher. 

Ah !  The  hounds  are  over  the  brook,  and  one  loud  cheerful 
note  after  another  gives  promise  of  another  burst.  Over  we  go 
too,  stumbling,  watchful  of  water-rats'  holes,  down  the  rotten 
bank,  wading  the  brown  gravelly  stream,  and  out  again  into 
another  rushy  pasture,  up  which  the  hounds  are  slowly  picking 
out  the  scent.  There,  they  have  it  now,  and  dash  forward  all 
together,  showing  a  beautiful  head,  a  "  globus,"  as  the  old  Romans 
called  a  pulk  of  irregular  horse.  You  might  cover  them  with  a 
sheet,  as  the  saying  is,  as  they  gallop  up  to  the  next  fence.  Oh 
that  it  may  last  ? 

It  does  last,  through  five  or  six  fields,  parted  by  stiff  banks 
enough  ;  and  then  the  hounds  vanish  among  brushwood.  I  see 
the  gentlemen  ahead  of  me  "craning,"  meditative.  There  is 
something  uncanny  beyond. 

Uncanny  enough.  A  hollow  lane  it  is,  several  feet  below  the 
soil.  A  hard  lane,  without  a  foot  of  side-turf  to  save  your  horse's 
feet.  A  nasty  lane  ;  a  "  naughty  lane,"  as  the  Shakspearians 
would  have  called  it.  The  green  coat  gallops  off  to  a  gate,  and 
pauses.  It  is  nailed  up.  He  pauses,  swings  his  horse  round  and 
back  twenty  yards,  comes  up  in  a  quiet  hand  canter,  and  over 
gallantly.  Whom  a  red-coat  follows :  but  no  more.  Certainly 
not  I ;  for  the  mare  cannot  do  timber  well ;  and  if  she  could  I 
see  ugly  things  upon  the  ground  on  both  sides  of  that  gate,  which 
one  horse  may  escape,  or  two  ;  but  which  will  give  some  one  a 
fall,  probably  me ;  for  the  agricultural  intellect  has  here  (as  in 
most  parts)  a  tendency  to  mend  gate-roads  with  loose  flints, 
brickbats,  broken  bottles,  iron  hoops,  beef  bones,  and  other  abnor 
mal  substances,  which  make  "  bad  rising  and  bad  falling  " — and 
— there  is  a  third  hero  rolling  in  the  road,  with  his  horse's  hind 
legs  hung  up  in  the  gate  ;  and  when  the  too-valiant  quadruped 
has  at  last  tumbled  over  it  on  his  nose,  and  got  up  again,  he 
limps  sadly  on  one  of  the  said  hind  legs,  and  his  master  has  to 
lead  him  dolefully  away,  and  probably  consign  him  to  the  stable 
for  the  next  month.  Hapless  that  we  are  !  unless  we  are  content 
to  be  pounded,  into  that  lane  we  must  leap  after  all.  Well,  the 
whip  and  one  or  two  more  have  leapt  down  already,  and  what 
must  be  must ;  but  I  must  wait  a  moment,  for  there  is  a  man  on 
his  head  below  me,  and  a  horse  on  his  head  also.  They  pick 


MY  WINTEK-GARDEN.  421 

themselves  up.  The  man  examines  his  horse's  knees,  and  gives 
a  grunt  of  comfort.  The  poor  brute's  head  has  saved  his  legs, 
and  he  stands  yawing  hk  chin  dolefully  up  and  down,  apparently 
with  a  view  to  ascertaining  whether  or  not  his  head  is  broken  off. 
The  man  picks  up  what  was  his  hat,  and  on  and  away  again, 
both  he  and  his  horse,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  bleeding  pretty  freely 
about  the  face.  However,  he  is  an  Englishman,  and  "  it  is  all  in 
the  day's  work." 

Warned  by  my  fellow's  fate,  I  jump  off,  and  lead  down.  The 
old  mare  relieved  of  my  weight,  jumps  after  me  like  a  dog,  and 
we,  too,  are  away  again,  having  lost  a  great  deal  of  ground. 
But  no  one  expects  me  to  be  in  the  first  flight. 

We  are  in  the  lane ;  and  Tom  the  huntsman,  by  a  desperate 
up  leap  which  no  one  follows,  is  out  again  five  minutes  since  : 
but  we  gallop  up  the  lane — getting  into  it  was  quite  enough  to 
do.  We  will  leave  well  alone,  and  stay  in  it  while  we  can. 

Out  upon  a  village  green,  planted  with  rows  of  oaks  and  pop 
lars,  surrounded  by  the  trim  sunny  cottages  of  retired  London 
ers,  a  pleasant  oasis  in  the  middle  of  the  wilderness.  Across 
the  village  cricket-ground  (we  are  great  cricketers  in  these  parts, 
and  long  may  the  good  old  game  live  among  us,)  and  then  up 
another  hollow  lane,  which  leads  between  damp  shaughs  and 
copses  toward  the  further  moor. 

Curious  things  to  a  minute  philosopher  are  these  same  hollow 
lanes.  They  set  him  on  archaeological  questions,  more  than  he 
can  solve ;  and  he  has  time  to  think  over  them  just  now,  for  there 
is  no  hurry ;  the  hounds  are  picking  out  the  scent  slowly  enough 
over  the  adjoining  fallows,  and  he  has  time  to  meditate  how  many 
centuries  it  took  to  saw  through  the  warm  sand-banks  this  dyke 
ten  feet  deep,  up  which  he  trots,  with  the  oak  boughs  meeting 
over  his  head.  Was  it  ever  worth  men's  while  to  dig  out  the 
soil  ?  Surely  not.  The  old  method  must  have  been,  to  remove 
the  softer  upper  spit,  till  they  got  to  tolerably  hard  ground ;  and 
then,  Macadam's  metal  being  as  yet  unknown,  the  rains  and  the 
wheels  of  generations  sawed  gradually  deeper  and  deeper,  till  this 
road-ditch  was  formed.  But  it  must  have  taken  centuries  to  do 
it.  Many  of  these  hollow  lanes,  especially  those  on  flat  ground, 
must  be  as  old  or  older  than  the  Conquest.  In  Devonshire,  I  am 
sure  that  they  are.  But  there  many  of  them,  one  suspects,  were 
made,  not  of  malice  but  of  cowardice  prepense.  Your  indigen 
ous  Celt  was,  one  fears,  a  sneaking  animal,  and  liked  to  keep 
when  he  could  under  cover  of  banks  and  hill-sides  ;  while  your 
bold  Roman  made  his  raised  roads  straight  over  hill  and  dale, 
"  ridge-ways  "  from  which,  as  from  an  eagle's  eyrie,  he  could  sur 
vey  the  conquered  lowlands  far  and  wide.  It  marks  strongly  the 


422  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

difference  between  the  two  races,  that  difference  between  the 
Iloman  paved  road,  with  its  established  common  way  for  all  pas- 
sengers,its  regular  stations  and  milestones,  and  the  Celtic  track 
way,  winding  irresolutely  along  in  innumerable  ruts,  parting  to 
meet  again,  as  if  each  savage  (for  they  were  nothing  better)  had 
taken  his  own  fresh  path  when  he  found  the  next  line  of  ruts  [too 
heavy  for  his  cattle.  Around  the  spurs  of  Dartmoor  I  have  seen 
many  ancient  roads,  some  of  them  long  disused,  which  could  have 
been  hollowed  out  for  no  purpose  but  that  of  concealment. 

But  where  are  the  hounds  all  this  time  ?  There,  two  fields  on 
our  left,  at  a  dead  stand-still.  I  am  afraid  that  it  would  not  mat 
ter  much  if  they  were  ten  fields  off.  I  am  beginning  to  fear 
exceedingly  that  we  shall  not  kill  this  fox.  The  delay  is  getting" 
serious.  Some  one  observes  "  that  he  must  be  a  long  way  ahead 
of  us  by  now  ; "  and  is  answered  by  a  general  grunt,  or  groan. 
However,  we  are  on  the  right  side  of  the  hounds.  If  he  has 
gone  anywhere,  he  has  gone  to  the  large  covers  of  the  southern 
winter-garden,  and  has  crossed  our  path  up  above.  So  we  go 
slowly  up  the  hill,  till  the  valley  lies  beneath  us  like  a  long  green 
garden  between  its  two  banks  of  brown  moor,  and  through  a 
cheerful  little  green,  with  red  brick  cottages  scattered  all  round, 
each  with  its  large  neat  garden  and  beehives,  and  pigs  and  geese, 
and  turf-stack,  and  dipt  yews  and  hollies  before  the  door,  and  rosy 
dark-eyed  children,  and  all  the  simple  healthy  comforts  of  a  wild 
"  heth-cropper's "  home.  When  he  can,  the  good  man  of  the 
house  works  at  farm  labour,  or  cuts  his  own  turf;  and  when  work 
is  scarce,  he  cuts  copses  and  makes  heath-brooms,  and  does  a  little 
poaching.  True,  he  seldom  goes  to  church,  save  to  be  christened, 
married,  or  buried ;  but  he  equally  seldom  gets  drunk.  For 
church  and  public  stand  together  two  miles  off;  so  that  social 
wants  sometimes  bring  their  own  compensations  with  them,  and 
there  are  two  sides  to  every  question. 

Hark  !  A  faint,  dreary  hollo  off  the  moor  above.  And  then 
another,  and  another.  Up  the  lane  we  gallop,  trusting  to  the  cry; 
for  the  clod  of  these  parts  delights  in  the  chase  like  any  bare-leg 
ged  Paddy,  and  casts  away  flail  and  fork  wildly,  to  run,  shout, 
assist,  and  interfere  in  all  possible  ways,  out  of  pure  love.  The 
descendant  of  many  generations  of  broom-squires  and  deer-steal- 
ers,  the  instinct  of  sport  is  strong  within  him  still,  though  no 
more  of  the  king's  deer  are  to  be  shot  in  the  winter  turnip-fields, 
or  worse,  caught  by  an  apple-baited  hook  hung  from  an  orchard 
bough.  He  now  limits  his  aspirations  to  hares  and  pheasants, 
and  too  probably  once  in  his  life  "  hits  the  keeper  into  the 
river,"  and  reconsiders  himself  for  awhile  after  over  a  crank  in 
Winchester  jail.  Well,  he  has  his  faults ;  and  I  have  mine. 


MY  WINTER-GARDEN.  423 

But  he  is  a  thorough  good  fellow  nevertheless  ;  quite  as  good  as 
I ;  civil,  contented,  industrious,  and  often  very  handsome  ;  and  a 
far  shrewder  fellow  too — owing  to  his  dash  of  wild  forest  blood — 
gypsy,  highwayman,  and  what  not — than  his  bullet-headed,  and 
flaxen-polled  cousin,  the  pure  South  Saxon  of  the  Chalk-downs. 
Dark  haired  he  is,  ruddy,  and  tall  of  bone  ;  swaggering  in  his 
youth ;  but  when  he  grows  old,  a  thorough  gentleman,  reserved, 
stately  and  courteous  as  a  prince.  Fifteen  years  have  I  lived 
with  him  hail  fellow  well  met,  and  never  yet  had  a  rude  word  or 
action  from  him. 

We  canter  up  to  the  agriculturist  who  stands  roaring  on  the 
top  of  a  gate-post,  and  steadying  himself  by  a  tree. 

"  He  is  just  gone  on  there.  Not  a  quarter  of  an  hour  since. 
Along  that  hedge-row." 

So  ?  Then,  when  the  hounds  are  thrown  into  the  field,  why 
do  they  not  hit  him  off?  Why  does  the  next  field  only  give  a 
hint  of  his  having  past ;  and  the  next  none  at  all  ?  Why  are 
we  doomed  to  wander  shivering  for  the  next  half  hour,  up  and 
down  this  lane-end,  discussing  the  solemn  question  as  to  where 
Reinecke  may,  can,  will,  shall,  might,  could,  would,  and  should 
have  gone ;  and  watching  those  two  sorrowful  red  coats  and 
that  sorrowful  line  of  hounds  trotting  in  a  great  ring  below  us 
through  the  fallow  fields,  while  the  huntsman's  notes  of  encour 
agement  come  up  the  breeze,  fainter,  sadder,  more  hopeless 
every  minute? 

Because  the  scent  has  failed.  And  why  scent  fails,  or  does 
not  fail,  and  what  scent  is — and,  in  short,  any  thing  about  the 
matter,  man  knows — no  more  than  he  knows  why  his  own  pulse 
beats.  It  depends  on  the  weather  ?  Probably.  It  is  best  with 
a  steady  or  rising  glass  ?  Possibly.  It  is  best  in  a  southerly 
wind  and  a  cloudy  sky  ?  In  some  countries.  On  clays  and 
grass,  they  say.  And  yet  what  sings  the  poet  of  the  immortal 
Billesden  Coplow  fox,  who  ran  seventy  miles  on  end  ? — (there 
were  three  foxes  up  though  that  day:) — 

The  wind  was  northeast,  and  most  bitterly  keen; 
'Twas  the  worst  hunting  morning  that  ever  was  seen. 

And  yet  the  best  scenting  day  I  ever  saw  on  grass  was  a  sunny 
April  southwester,  when  it  was  so  hot  the  horses  could  hardly 
breathe  or  go  ;  and  the  best  days  for  the  heather  are  howling 
black  northeasters.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that  scent  lies 
best  when  the  air  is  colder  than  the  ground  ;  and  I  have  a  scien 
tific  theory,  that 

Scent  varies  inversely  as  evaporation ; 


424  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

which  sounds  very  fine,  and  seems  to  come  true — as  often  as 
other  theories  do,  namely,  about  once  in  three  times  ;  quite  often 
enough  to  prove  the  correctness  of  any  theory,  whether  zoological 
or  theological.  So  it  may  stand,  though  it  wont  help  us  to 
recover  this  fox ;  and  I  am  going  home. 

Going  home.  The  fox  will  be  hit  off  probably,  for  a  few 
yards  up  on  the  moor  to  the  left ;  heard  of,  probably,  to-morrow, 
from  some  keeper  five  miles  off:  but  Reinecke  will  not  die  this 
day.  He  will  lie  safe  at  a  friend's  house  till  nightfall,  and  trot 
home  to  Malepartus  during  the  small  hours,  to  brag  and  crow  to 
his  admiring  spouse  over  his  mighty  feats,  and  how  he  outwittecl 
that  dull  thing  called  man  ;  carefully  "  remembering  to  forget," 
as  Peter  Pindar  has  it,  that  his  life  was  saved,  neither  by  courage 
nor  cunning,  but  by  base  panic  fear  of  a  gaunt  sheep-dog,  who 
turned  and  coursed  him  exactly  whither  he  did  not  want  to  go, 
at  the  top  of  this  very  lane. 

Be  it  so  :  or  be  it  otherwise  ; — what  care  I  ?  I  have  had  my 
exercise  and  pleasure,  and  shall  not  have  any  more  such  for  full  a 
week  to  come ;  I  have  sent  more  oxygen  through  my  lungs  in 
the  last  hour  than  I  have  in  the  previous  eight-and-forty.  I  have 
given  a  wholesome  stir  to  that  Thumos  (translate  as  you  will — 
wrath,  spirit,  pluck,  or  otherwise,)  which  Plato  says  is  the  root  of 
all  virtues.  I  have  indulged  for  awhile  that  savage  element 
which  ought  to  be  in  the  heart  of  every  man  ;  for  it  alone  gives 
him  the  energy  by  which  he  civilizes  himself.  I  have  overcome 
obstacles  and  endured  dangers ;  by  doing  which  alone  man 
becometh  strong,  great,  useful,  or  otherwise  worth  one  brass 
farthing.  I  have  felt  myself  for  half  an  hour  a  free  man,  with  a 
right  to  as  much  of  Neman's  Land,  which  is  the  whole  universe, 
as  I  could  take  and  hold  with  four  horse-hoofs.  I  have  cast  off 
the  trammels  of  society,  in  as  far  as  they  are  represented  by 
banks,  ditches,  and  hurdles,  and  have  returned  awhile  to  that 
state  of  nature  out  of  which  all  civilization  came,  and  to  which 
perfect  civilization  ought  in  some  way  to  return.  In  short,  I 
have  done  and  seen  and  thought,  things  unspeakable — at  least  so 
I  hold.  And  if  I  have  ridden  neither  very  long  nor  very  well — 
so  much  the  better  for  me,  who  can  get  so  much  out  of  so  little. 
Here  again  comes  in  the  advantage  of  being  a  minute  philoso 
pher.  On  the  other  side  of  the  account,  my  hat  has  one  more 
dent  in  it ;  but  what  is  one  among  so  many  ?  I  feel,  too,  a  little 
chilly  about  the  small  of  the  back,  and  shall  indulge  in  a  warm 
salt-bath  the  minute  I  get  home.  But  my  heart  is  lightened  and 
my  brain  cleared  ;  and  I  can  go  home  to  the  cheerful  study  and 
write  off  this  epistle  to  you,  old  friend,  without  foul  copy  or  cor 
rection,  so  sharpened  are  my  wits  by  the  simple  expedient  of  air 


MY  WINTER-GARDEN.  425 

and  exercise,  idleness  and  excitement — the  only  method  by  which 
the  mens  sana  can  be  kept  inside  the  corpus  sanum.  It  has  been 
a  short  pleasure,  truly,  but  all  the  more  easily  obtained ;  and  a 
frivolous  one,  perhaps,  in  wise  folks'  eyes ;  but  then,  you  know, 
nothing  is  frivolous  to  a  Minute  Philosopher, 


426  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 


ENGLAND   FROM   WOLSEY   TO   ELIZABETH. 

[North  British  Review.] 

THERE  appeared,  a  few  years  since,  a  "  Comic  History  ofJZng- 
land"  duly  caricaturing  and  falsifying  all  our  great  national 
events,  and  representing  the  English  people,  for  many  centuries 
back,  as  a  mob  of  fools  and  knaves,  led  by  the  nose  in  each  gen 
eration  by  a  few  arch-fools  and  arch-knaves.  Some  thoughtful 
persons  regarded  the  book  with  utter  contempt  and  indignation ; 
it  seemed  to  them  a  crime  to  have  written  it;  a  proof  of 
"  banausia,"  as  Aristotle  would  have  called  it,  only  to  be  outdone 
by  the  writing  a  "  Comic  Bible."  After  a  while,  however,  their 
indignation  began  to  subside ;  their  second  thoughts,  as  usual, 
were  more  charitable  than  their  first ;  they  were  not  surprised  to 
hear  that  the  author  was  an  honest,  just,  and  able  magistrate ; 
they  saw  that  the  publication  of  such  a  book  involved  no  moral 
turpitude ;  that  it  was  merely  meant  as  a  jest  on  a  subject  on 
which  jesting  was  permissible,  and  as  a  money  speculation  in  a 
field  of  which  men  had  a  right  to  make  money ;  while  all  which 
seemed  offensive  in  it,  was  merely  the  outcome,  and  as  it  were 
apotheosis,  of  that  method  of  writing  English  history  which  has 
been  popular  for  nearly  a  hundred  years.  "Which  of  our 
modern  historians,"  they  asked  themselves,  "  has  had  any  real 
feeling  of  the  importance,  the  sacredness,  of  his  subject  ?  Any 
real  trust  in,  or  respect  for,  the  characters  with  whom  he  dealt  ? 
Has  not  the  belief  of  each  and  all  of  them  been  the  same — that 
on  the  whole,  the  many  always  have  been  fools  and  knaves ; 
foolish  and  knavish  enough,  at  least,  to  become  the  puppets  of  a 
few  fools  and  knaves  who  held  the  reins  of  power  ?  Have  they 
not  held  that,  on  the  whole,  the  problems  of  human  nature,  and 
human  history,  have  been  sufficiently  solved  by  Gibbon  and 
Yoltaire,  Gil  Bias,  and  Figaro  ?  That  our  forefathers  were  silly 
barbarians, — that  this  glorious  nineteenth  century  is  the  one 
region  of  light,  and  that  all  before  was  outer  darkness,  peopled 
by  "  foreign  devils,"  Englishmen,  no  doubt,  according  to  the  flesh, 

A  History  of  England  from  the  Fall  of  Wolsey  to  the  Death  of  Elizabeth.  By 
J.  A.  FKOUDE. 


ENGLAND  FROM  WOLSEY  TO  ELIZABETH.  427 

but  in  spirit,  in  knowledge,  in  creed,  in  customs,  so  utterly  differ 
ent  from  ourselves,  that  we  shall  merely  show  our  sentimentalism 
by  doing  aught  but  laughing  at  them  ? 

On  what  other  principle  have  our  English  histories  as  yet  been 
constructed,  even  down  to  the  children's  books,  which  taught  us 
in  childhood  that  the  history  in  this  country  was  nothing  but  a 
string  of  foolish  wars,  carried  on  by  wicked  kings,  for  reasons 
hitherto  unexplained,  save  on  that  great  historic  law  of  Gold 
smith's,  by  which  Sir  Archibald  Alison  would  still  explain  the 
French  Revolution, — 

"  The  dog,  to  serve  his  private  ends, 
Went  mad,  and  bit  the  man?  " 

It  will  be  answered  by  some,  and  perhaps  rather  angrily,  that 
these  strictures  are  too  sweeping ;  that  there  is  arising,  in  a  cer 
tain  quarter,  a  school  of  history-books  for  young  people  of  a  far 
more  reverent  tone,  which  tries  to  do  full  honour  to  the  Church, 
and  her  work  in  the  world.  Those  books  of  this  school  which 
we  have  seen,  we  must  reply,  seem  just  as  much  wanting  in  real 
reverence  for  the  past,  as  the  school  of  Gibbon  and  Voltaire.  It 
is  not  the  past  which  they  reverence,  but  a  few  characters  or 
facts  eclectically  picked  out  of  the  past,  and  for  the  most  part, 
made  to  look  beautiful  by  ignoring  all  the  features  which  will  not 
suit  their  preconceived  pseudo-ideal.  There  is  in  these  books  a 
scarcely  concealed  dissatisfaction  with  the  whole  course  of  the 
British  mind  since  the  Reformation,  and  (though  they  are  not 
inclined  to  confess  the  fact)  with  its  whole  course  before  the  Re 
formation,  because  that  course  was  one  of  steady  struggle  against 
the  Papacy  and  its  anti-national  pretensions.  They  are  the  out 
come  of  an  utterly  un-English  tone  of  thought ;  and  the  so-called 
"  ages  of  faith  "  are  pleasant  and  useful  to  them,  principally  be 
cause  they  are  distant  and  unknown  enough  to  enable  them  to 
conceal  from  their  readers  that  in  the  ages  on  which  they  look 
back  as  ideally  perfect,  a  Bernard  and  a  Francis  of  Assisi  were 
crying  all  day  long, — "  O  that  my  head  were  a  fountain  of  tears, 
that  I  might  weep  for  the  sins  of  my  people  ! "  Dante  was  curs 
ing  popes  and  prelates  in  the  name  of  the  God  of  Righteousness ; 
Chaucer  and  Boccaccio  were  lifting  the  veil  from  priestly  abomi 
nations  of  which  we  now  are  ashamed  even  to  read,  and  Wolsey, 
seeing  the  rottenness  of  the  whole  system,  spent  his  mighty 
talents,  and  at  last  poured  out  his  soul  unto  death,  in  one  long 
useless  effort  to  make  the  crooked  straight,  and  number  that 
which  had  been  weighed  in  the  balances  of  God,  and  found  for 
ever  wanting.  To  ignore  wilfully  facts  like  these,  which  were 
patent  all  along  to  the  British  nation,  facts  on  which  the  British 


428  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

laity  acted,  till  they  finally  conquered  at  the  Reformation,  and 
on  which  they  are  acting  still,  and  will,  probably,  act  for  ever,  is 
not  to  have  any  real  reverence  for  the  opinions  or  virtues  of  our 
forefathers ;  and  we  are  not  astonished  to  find  repeated,  in  such 
books,  the  old  stock  calumnies  against  our  lay  and  Protestant 
worthies,  taken  at  second-hand  from  the  pages  of  Lingard.  In 
copying  from  Lingard,  however,  this  party  has  done  no  more 
than  those  writers  have  who  would  repudiate  any  party — almost 
any  Christian — purpose.  Lingard  is  known  to  have  been  a 
learned  man,  and  to  have  examined  many  manuscripts  which  few 
else  had  taken  the  trouble  to  look  at ;  so  his  word  is  to  be  taken, 
no  one  thinking  it  worth  while  to  ask  whether  he  has  either 
honestly  read,-  or  honestly  quoted,  the  documents.  It  suited  the 
sentimental  and  lazy  liberality  of  the  last  generation  to  make  a 
show  of  fairness,  by  letting  the  Popish  historian  tell  his  side  of 
the  story,  and  to  sneer  at  the  illiberal  old  notion,  that  gentlemen 
of  his  class  were  given  to  be  rather  careless  about  historic  truth 
when  they  had  a  purpose  to  serve  thereby ;  and  Lingard  is  now 
actually  recommended,  as  a  standard  authority  for  the  young, 
by  educated  Protestants,  who  seem  utterly  unable  to  see,  that, 
whether  the  man  be  honest  or  not,  his  whole  view  of  the  course 
of  British  events,  since  Becket  first  quarrelled  with  his  king, 
must  be  antipodal  to  their  own;  and  that  his  account  of  all 
which  has  passed  for  three  hundred  years  since  the  fall  of 
Wolsey,  is  most  likely  to  be  (and,  indeed,  may  be  proved  to  be) 
one  huge  libel  on  the  whole  nation,  and  the  destiny  which  God 
has  marked  out  for  it. 

There  is,  indeed,  no  intrinsic  cause  why  the  ecclesiastical,  or 
pseudo-Catholic,  view  of  history  should,  in  any  wise,  conduce  to 
a  just  appreciation  of  our  forefathers.  For  not  only  did  our 
forefathers  rebel  against  that  conception  again  and  again,  till 
they  finally  trampled  it  under  their  feet,  and  so  appear,  primd 
facie,  as  offenders  to  be  judged  at  its  bar ;  but  the  conception 
itself  is  one  which  takes  the  very  same  view  of  nature  as  that 
cynic  conception  of  which  we  spoke  above.  Man,  with  the 
Komish  divines,  is,  ipso  facto,  the  same  being  as  the  man  of  Vol 
taire,  Le  Sage,  or  Beaumarchais ; — he  is  an  insane  and  degraded 
being,  who  is  to  be  kept  in  order,  and,  as  far  as  may  be,  cured 
and  set  to  work  by  an  ecclesiastical  system ;  and  the  only  threads 
of  light  in  the  dark  web  of  his  history  are  clerical  and  theurgic, 
not  lay  and  human.  Voltaire  is  the  very  experimentum  crucis 
of  this  ugly  fact.  European  history  looks  to  him  what  it  would 
have  looked  to  his  Jesuit  preceptors,  had  the  sacerdotal  element 
in  it  been  wanting ;  what  heathen  history  actually  did  look  to 
them.  He  eliminates  the  sacerdotal  element,  and  nothing  re- 


ENGLAND  FEOM  WOLSEY  TO  ELIZABETH.  429 

mains  but  the  chaos  of  apes  and  wolves,  which  the  Jesuits  had 
taught  him  to  believe  was  the  original  substratum  of  society. 
The  humanity  of  his  history — even  of  his  Pucelle  d' Orleans — 
is  simply  the  humanity  of  Sanchez,  and  the  rest  of  those  vingt- 
quatre  Peres,  who  hang  gibbeted  for  ever  in  the  pages  of  Pascal. 
He  is  superior  to  his  teachers,  certainly,  in  this,  that  he  has  hope 
for  humanity  on  earth ;  dreams  of  a  new  and  nobler  life  for 
society,  by  means  of  a  true  and  scientific  knowledge  of  the  laws 
of  the  moral  and  material  universe ;  in  a  word,  he  has,  in  the 
midst  of  all  his  filth  and  his  atheism,  a  faith  in  a  righteous  and 
truth-revealing  God,  which  the  priests  who  brought  him  up  had 
not.  Let  the  truth  be  spoken,  even  though  in  favour  of  such  a 
destroying  Azrael  as  Voltaire.  And  what  if  his  primary  con 
ception  of  humanity  be  utterly  base  ?  Is  that  of  our  modern  his 
torians  so  much  higher?  Do  Christian  men  seem  to  them,  on 
the  whole,  in  all  ages,  to  have  had  the  Spirit  of  God  with  them, 
leading  them  into  truth,  however  imperfectly  and  confusedly  they 
may  have  learnt  his  lessons  ?  Have  they  ever  heard  with  their 
ears,  or  listened  when  their  fathers  have  declared  unto  them  the 
noble  works  which  God  did  in  their  days,  and  in  the  old  time 
before  them  ?  Do  they  believe  that  the  path  of  Christendom 
has  been,  on  the  whole,  the  path  of  life,  and  the  right  way,  and 
that  the  living  God  is  leading  her  therein  ?  Are  they  proud  of 
the  old  British  worthies  ?  Are  they  jealous  and  tender  of  the 
reputation  of  their  ancestors  ?  Do  they  believe  that  there  were 
any  worthies  at  all  in  England  before  the  steam-engine  and 
political  economy  were  discovered?  Do  their  conceptions  of 
past  society,  and  the  past  generations,  retain  any  thing  of  that 
great  thought  which  is  common  to  all  the  Arya  races — that  is, 
to  all  races  who  have  left  aught  behind  them  better  than  mere 
mounds  of  earth — to  Hindoo  and  Persian,  Greek  and  Roman, 
Teuton  and  Scandinavian,  that  men  are  the  sons  of  the  heroes, 
who  were  the  sons  of  God  ?  Or  do  they  believe,  that  for  civil 
ized  people  of  the  nineteenth  century,  it  is  as  well  to  say  as 
little  as  possible  about  ancestors  who  possessed  our  vices  without 
our  amenities,  our  ignorance  without  our  science ;  who  were 
bred,  no  matter  how,  like  flies  by  summer  heat,  out  of  that  ever- 
lusting  midden  which  men  call  the  world,  to  buzz  and  sting 
their  foolish  day,  and  leave  behind  them  a  fresh  race  which 
knows  them  not,  and  could  win  no  honour  by  owning  them, 
and  which  owes  them  no  more  than  if  it  had  been  produced,  as 
midden-flies  were  said  to  be  of  old,  by  some  spontaneous  genera 
tion  ? 

It  is  not  likely  that  any  writer  in  this  review  will  be  likely  to 
undervalue  political  economy,  or  the  steam-engine,  or  any  other 


430  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

solid  and  practical  good,  which  God  has  unveiled  to  this  genera 
tion.  All  that  we  demand  (for  we  have  a  right  to  demand  it) 
is,  that  rational  men  should  believe  that  our  forefathers  were  at 
least  as  good  as  we  are  ;  that  whatsoever  their  measure  of  light 
was,  they  acted  up  to  what  they  knew,  as  faithfully  as  we  do  ; 
and  that,  on  the  whole,  it  was  not  their  fault  if  they  did  not 
know  more.  Even  now,  the  real  discoveries  of  the  age  are 
made,  as  of  old,  by  a  very  few  men ;  and,  -when  made,  have  to 
struggle,  as  of  old,  against  all  manner  of  superstitions,  lazinesses, 
skepticisms.  Is  the  history  of  the  Minie  rifle  one  so  very  com 
plimentary  to  our  age's  quickness  of  perception,  that  we  can 
afford  to  throw  many  stones  at  the  prejudices  of  our  ancestors  ? 
The  truth  is  that,  as  of  old,  "  many  men  talk  of  Robin  Hood, 
who  never  shot  in  his  bow  ; "  and  many  talk  of  Bacon,  who 
never  discovered  a  law  by  induction  since  they  were  born.  As 
far  as  our  experience  goes,  those  who  are  loudest  in  their  jubila 
tions  over  the  wonderful  progress  of  the  age,  are  those  who  have 
never  helped  that  progress  forward  one  inch,  but  find  it  a  great 
deal  easier  and  more  profitable  to  use  the  results  which  humbler 
men  have  painfully  worked  out,  as  second-hand  capital  for  hust 
ings  speeches  and  railway  books,  and  flatter  a  mechanic's  insti 
tute  of  self-satisfied  youths,  by  telling  them  that  the  least  in 
structed  of  them  is  wiser  than  Erigena  or  Roger  Bacon.  Let 
them  be.  They  have  their  reward.  And  so  also  has  the  patient 
and  humble  man  of  science,  who,  the  more  he  knows,  confesses 
the  more  how  little  he  knows,  and  looks  back  with  affectionate 
reverence  on  the  great  men  of  old  time, — on  Archimedes  and 
Ptolemy,  Aristotle  and  Pliny,  and  many  another  honourable 
man  who,  walking  in  great  darkness,  'sought  a  ray  of  light,  and 
did  not  seek  in  vain,  as  integral  parts  of  that  golden  chain  of 
which  he  is  but  one  link  more  ;  as  scientific  forefathers,  without 
whose  aid  his  science  could  not  have  had  a  being. 

Meanwhile,  this  general  tone  of  irreverence  for  our  forefathers 
is  no  hopeful  sign.  It  is  unwise  to  "  inquire  why  the  former 
times  were  better  than  these  ;  "  to  hang  lazily  and  weakly  over 
some  eclectic  dream  of  a  past  golden  age  ;  for  to  do  so  is  to  deny 
that  God  is  working  in  this  age  as  well  as  in  past  ages,  that  his 
light  is  as  near  us  now  as  it  was  to  the  worthies  of  old  time. 
But  it  is  more  than  unwise  to  boast  and  rejoice  that  the  former 
times  were  worse  than  these ;  and  to  teach  young  people  to  say 
in  their  hearts,  "  What  clever  fellows  we  are,  compared  to  our 
stupid  old  fogies  of  fathers  ! "  More  than  unwise  ;  for  possibly 
it  may  be  false  in  fact.  To  look  at  the  political  and  moral  state 
of  Europe  at  this  moment,  Christendom  can  hardly  afford  to 
look  down  on  any  preceding  century,  and  seems  to  be  in  want  of 


ENGLAND  FROM  WOLSEY  TO  ELIZABETH.  431 

something  which  neither  science  nor  constitutional  government 
seem  able  to  supply.  Whether  our  forefathers  also  lacked  that 
something,  we  will  not  inquire  just  now  ;  but  if  they  did,  their 
want  of  scientific  and  political  knowledge  was  evidently  not  the 
cause  of  the  defect ;  or  why  is  not  Spain  now  infinitely  better, 
instead  of  being  infinitely  worse  off,  than  she  was  three  hundred 
years  ago  ? 

At  home,  too •  But  on  the  question  whether  we  are  so  very 

much  better  off  than  our  forefathers,  Mr.  Froude,  not  we,  must 
speak  ;  for  he  has  deliberately,  in  his  new  history,  set  himself  to 
the  solution  of  this  question,  and  we  will  not  anticipate  what  he 
has  to  say  ;  what  we  would  rather  insist  on  now  are  the  moral 
ill  effects  produced  on  our  young  people  by  books  which  teach 
them  to  look  with  contempt  on  all  generations  but  their  own,  and 
with  suspicion  on  all  public  characters  save  a  few  contemporaries 
of  their  own  especial  party. 

There  is  an  ancient  Hebrew  book,  which  contains  a  singular 
story,  concerning  a  grandson  who  was  cursed,  because  his  father 
laughed  at  the  frailty  of  the  grandfather.  Whether  the  reader 
shall  regard  that  story  (as  we  do)  as  a  literal  fact  recorded  by 
inspired  wisdom,  as  an  instance  of  one  of  the  great  root-laws  of 
family  life,  and  therefore  of  that  national  life  which  (as  the 
Hebrew  book  so  cunningly  shows)  is  the  organic  development  of 
the  family  life ;  or  whether  he  shall  treat  it  (as  we  do  not)  as  a 
mere  apologue  or  myth,  he  must  confess  that  it.  is  equally  grand 
in  its  simplicity,  and  singular  in  its  unexpected  result.  The 
words  of  the  story,  taken  literally  and  simply,  no  more  justify 
the  notion  that  Canaan's  slavery  was  any  magical  consequence 
of  the  old  patriarch's  anger,  than  they  do  the  well-known  theory, 
that  it  was  the  cause  of  the  negro's  blackness.  Ham  shows  a 
low,  foul,  irreverent,  unnatural  temper  toward  his  father.  The 
old  man's  shame  is  not  a  cause  of  shame  to  his  son,  but  only  of 
laughter.  Noah  prophesies  (in  the  fullest  and  deepest  meaning 
of  that  word)  that  a  curse  will  come  upon  that  son's  son  ;  that 
he  will  be  a  slave  of  slaves,  and  reason  and  experience  show 
that  he  spoke  truth.  Let  the  young  but  see  that  their  fathers 
have  no  reverence  for  the  generation  before  them,  then  will  they 
in  turn  have  no  reverence  for  their  fathers.  Let  them  be  taught 
that  the  sins  of  their  ancestors  involve  their  own  honour  so  little, 
that  they  need  not  take  any  trouble  to  clear  the  blot  off  the 
scutcheon,  but  may  safely  sit  down  and  laugh  over  it,  saying, 
"  Very  likely  it  is  true.  If  so,  it  is  very  amusing,  and  if  not — 
what  matter  ?  " — Then  those  young  people  are  being  bred  up  in 
a  habit  of  mind  which  contains  in  itself  all  the  capabilities  of 
degradation  and  slavery,  in  self-conceit,  hasty  assertion,  disbe- 


432  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

lief  in  nobleness,  and  all  the  other  "  credulities  of  skepticism  ; " 
parted  from  that  past  from  which  they  take  their  common  origin, 
they  are  parted  also  from  each  other,  and  become  selfish,  self- 
seeking,  divided,  and  therefore  weak  ;  disbelieving  in  the  noble 
ness  of  those  who  have  gone  before  them,  they  learn  more  and 
more  to  disbelieve  in  the  nobleness  of  those  around  them,  and 
by  denying  God's  works  of  old,  come,  by  a  just  and  dreadful 
Nemesis,  to  be  unable  to  see  his  works  in  the  men  of  their  own 
day,  to  suspect  and  impugn  valour,  righteousness,  disinterested 
ness  in  their  contemporaries  ;  to  attribute  low  motives  ;  to  pride 
themselves  on  looking  at  men  and  things  as  "  men  who  know 
the  world,"  so  the  young  puppies  style  it ;  to  be  less  and  less 
chivalrous  to  women,  less  arid  less  respectful  to  old  men,  less  and 
less  ashamed  of  boasting  about  their  sensual  appetites ;  in  a  word, 
to  show  all  these  symptoms  which,  when  fully  developed,  leave  a 
generation  without  fixed  principles,  without  strong  faith,  without 
self-restraint,  without  moral  cohesion,  the  sensual  and  divided 
prey  of  any  race,  however  inferior  in  scientific  knowledge,  which 
has  a  clear  and  fixed  notion  of  its  work  and  destiny.  That  many 
of  these  signs  are  showing  themselves  more  and  more  ominously 
in  our  young  men,  from  the  fine  gentleman  who  rides  in  Rotten 
Row,  to  the  boy-mechanic  who  listens  enraptured  to  Mr.  Holy- 
oake's  exposures  of  the  absurdity  of  all  human  things  save  Mr. 
Holyoake's  self,  is  a  fact  which  presses  itself  most  on  those  who 
have  watched  this  age  most  carefully,  and  who  (rightly  or 
wrongly)  attribute  much  of  this  miserable  temper  to  the  way  in 
which  history  has  been  written  among  us  for  the  last  hundred 
years. 

Whether  or  not  Mr.  Froude  would  agree  with  these  notions, 
he  is  more  or  less  responsible  for  them  ;  for  they  have  been  sug 
gested  by  his  History  of  England  from  the  Fall  of  Wblsey  to 
the  Death  of  Elizabeth.  It  was  impossible  to  read  the  book, 
without  feeling  the  contrast  between  its  tone  and  that  of  every 
other  account  of  the  times  which  one  had  ever  seen.  Mr.  Froude 
seems  to  have  set  to  work  upon  the  principle,  too  much  ignored 
in  judging  of  the  past,  that  the  historian's  success  must  depend 
on  his  dramatic  faculty  ;  and  not  merely  on  that  constructive  ele 
ment  of  the  faculty  in  which  Mr.  Macaulay  shows  such  astonish 
ing  power,  but  on  that  higher  and  deeper  critical  element  which 
ought  to  precede  the  constructive  process,  and  without  which 
the  constructive  element  will  merely  enable  a  writer,  as  was  once 
bitterly  but  truly  said,  "  to  produce  the  greatest  possible  mis 
representation,  with  the  least  possible  distortion  of  fact."  That 
deeper  dramatic  faculty,  the  critical,  is  not  logical  merely,  but 
moral,  and  depends  on  the  moral  health,  the  wideness  and  hearti- 


ENGLAND  FKOM  WOLSEY  TO  ELIZABETH.  433 

ness  of  his  moral  sympathies,  by  which  he  can  put  himself,  as 
Mr.  Froude  has  attempted  to  do,  and  as  we  think  successfully, 
into  the  place  of  each  and  every  character,  and  not  merely  feel 
for  them,  but  feel  with  them.  He  does  not  merely  describe  their 
actions  from  the  outside,  attributing  them  arbitrarily  to  motives 
which  are  pretty  sure  to  be  the  lowest  possible,  because  it  is 
easier  to  conceive  a  low  motive  than  a  lofty  one,  and  to  call  a 
man  a  villain,  than  to  unravel  patiently  the  tangled  web  of  good 
and  evil  of  which  his  thoughts  are  composed.  He  has  attempted 
to  conceive  of  his  characters,  as  he  would  if  they  had  been  his 
own  contemporaries  and  equals,  acting,  speaking  in  his  company ; 
and  he  has,  therefore,  thought  himself  bound  to  act  toward 
them  by  those  rules  of  charity  and  courtesy,  common  alike  to 
Christian  morals,  English  law,  and  decent  society ;  namely,  to 
hold  every  man  innocent  till  he  is  proved  guilty  ;  where  a  doubt 
exists,  to  give  the  prisoner  at  the  bar  the  benefit  of  it ;  not  to 
excite  the  minds  of  the  public  against  him  by  those  insinuative 
or  vituperative  epithets,  which  are  but  adders  and  scorpions  ; 
and  on  the  whole,  to  believe  that  a  man's  death  and  burial  is  not 
the  least  reason  for  ceasing  to  behave  to  him  like  a  gentleman 
and  a  Christian.  We  are  not  inclined  to  play  with  solemn 
things,  or  to  copy  Lucian  and  Quevedo  in  writing  dialogues  of 
the  dead :  but  what  dialogues  might  some  bold  pen  dash  off, 
between  the  old  sons  of  Anak,  at  whose  coining  Hades  has 
long  ago  been  moved,  and  to  receive  whom  all  the  kings  of  the 
nations  have  risen  up,  and  the  little  scribblers  who  have  fancied 
themselves  able  to  fathom  and  describe  characters  to  whom 
they  were  but  pigmies !  Conceive  a  half-hour's  interview  be 
tween  Queen  Elizabeth  and  some  popular  lady-scribbler,  who 
has  been  deluding  herself  into  the  fancy  that  gossiping  invento 
ries  of  millinery  are  history.  ..."  You  pretend  to  judge 
me,  whose  labours,  whose  cares,  whose  fiery  trials,  were  beside 
yours,  as  the  heaving  volcano  beside  a  boy's  firework  ?  You 
condemn  my  weaknesses  ?  Know  that  they  were  stronger  than 
your  strength  !  You  impute  motives  for  my  sins  ?  Know  that 
till  you  are  as  great  as  I  have  been,  for  evil  and  for  good,  you 
will  be  as  little  able  to  comprehend  my  sins  as  my  righteousness ! 
Poor  marsh-croaker,  who  wishest  not  merely  to  swell  up  to  the 
bulk  of  the  ox,  but  to  embrace  it  in  thy  little  paws,  know  thine 
own  size,  and  leave  me  to  be  judged  by  Him  who  made 
me ! "  .  .  .  How  the  poor  soul  would  shrink  back  into 
nothing  before  that  lion  eye  which  saw  and  guided  the  destinies 
of  the  world,  and  all  the  flunkey-nature  (if  such  a  vice  exists 
beyond  the  grave)  come  out  in  utter  abjectness,  as  if  the  ass  in 
the  fable,  on  making  his  kick  at  the  dead  lion,  had  discovered 

19 


434  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

to  his  horror  that  the  lion   was  alive  and   well Spirit  of 

Quevedo  !     Finish  for  us  the  picture  which  we  cannot  finish  for 
ourselves. 

In  a  very  different  spirit  from  such  has  Mr.  Froude  approached 
these  times.  Great  and  good  deeds  were  done  in  them ;  and  it 
has  therefore  seemed  probable  to  him  that  there  were  great  and 
good  men  there  to  do  them.  Thoroughly  awake  to  the  fact  that 
the  Reformation  was  the  new  birth  of  the  British  nation,  it  has 
seemed  to  him  a  puzzling  theory,  which  attributes  its  success  to 
the  lust  of  a  tyrant,  and  the  cupidity  of  his  courtiers.  It  has 
evidently  seemed  to  him  paradoxical  that  a  king  who  was  re 
puted  to  have  been  a  satyr,  should  have  chosen  to  gratify  his 
passions  by  entering  six  times  into  the  strict  bonds  of  matrimony, 
religiously  observing  those  bonds.  It  has  seemed  to  him  even 
more  paradoxical,  that  one  reputed  to  have  been  the  most  san 
guinary  tyrant  who  ever  disgraced  the  English  throne,  should 
have  been  not  only  endured,  but  loved  and  regretted  by  a  fierce 
and  free-spoken  people ;  and  he,  we  suppose,  could  comprehend 
as  little  as  we  can  the  reasoning  of  such  a  passage  as  the  follow 
ing,  especially  when  it  proceeds  from  the  pen  of  so  wise  and 
temperate  a  writer  as  Mr.  Hallam. 

"A  government  administered  with  so  frequent  violations,  not 
only  of  the  chartered  privileges  of  Englishmen,  but  of  those  still 
more  sacred  rights  which  natural  law  has  established,  must  have 
been  regarded,  one  would  imagine,  with  just  abhorrence,  and 
earnest  longings  for  a  change.  Yet  contemporary  authorities  by 
no  means  answer  this  expectation.  Some  mention  Henry  after 
his  death  in  language  of  eulogy  ;  (not  only  Elizabeth,  be  it  re 
membered,  but  Cromwell  always  spoke  of  him  with  deepest 
respect ;  and  their  language  always  found  an  echo  in  the  Eng 
lish  heart ;)  and  if  we  except  those  whom  attachment  to  the  an 
cient  religion  had  inspired  with  hatred  to  his  memory,  few  seem 
to  have  been  aware  that  his  name  would  descend  to  posterity 
among  those  of  the  many  tyrants  and  oppressors  of  innocence, 
whom  the  wrath  of  Heaven  has  raised  up,  and  the  servility  of 
man  endured." 

The  names  of  even  those  few  we  should  be  glad  to  have ;  for 
it  seems  to  us,  that  (with  the  exception  of  a  few  ultra  Protes 
tants,  who  could  not  forgive  that  persecution  of  the  reformers, 
which  he  certainly  permitted,  if  not  encouraged  during  one  period 
of  his  reign,)  no  one  adopted  the  modern  view  of  his  character, 
till  more  than  a  hundred  years  after  his  death,  when  belief  in 
all  nobleness  and  faith  had  died  out  among  an  ignoble  and  faith 
less  generation,  and  the  scandalous  gossip  of  such  a  light  rogue 
as  Osborne  was  taken  into  the  place  of  honest  and  respectful 
history. 


ENGLAND   FROM  WOLSEY  TO   ELIZABETH.  435 

To  clear  up  such  seeming  paradoxes  as  these,  by  carefully 
examining  the  facts  of  the  sixteenth  century,  has  been  Mr. 
Froude's  work,  and  we  have  the  results  of  his  labour  in  two 
volumes,  embracing  only  a  period  of  eleven  years  ;  but  giving 
promise  that  the  mysteries  of  the  succeeding  time  will  be  well 
cleared  up  for  us  in  future  volumes,  and  that  we  shall  find  our 
forefathers  to  have  been,  if  no  better,  at  least  no  worse  men, 
than  ourselves.  He  has  brought  to  the  task  known  talents  and 
learning,  a  mastery  over  English  prose  almost  unequalled  in  this 
generation,  a  spirit  of  most  patient  and  good-tempered  research, 
and  that  intimate  knowledge  of  human  motives  and  passions 
which  his  former  books  have  shown,  and  which  we  have  a  right 
to  expect  from  any  scholar  who  has  really  profited  by  Aristotle's 
unrivalled  Ethics.  He  has  plainly  examined  every  contempo 
rary  document  within  his  reach,  and,  as  he  informs  us  in  the  pre 
face,  he  has  been  enabled,  through  the  kindness  of  Sir  Francis 
Palgrave,  to  consult  a  great  number  of  MSS.  relating  to  the 
Reformation,  hitherto  all  but  unknown  to  the  public,  and  referred 
to  in  his  work  as  MSS.  in  the  Rolls'  House,  where  the  originals 
are  easily  accessible.  These,  he  states,  he  intends  to  publish,  with 
additions  from  his  own  reading,  as  soon  as  he  has  brought  his 
history  down  to  the  end  of  Henry  the  Eighth's  reign. 

But  Mr.  Froude's  chief  text-book  seems  to  have  been  State 
Papers  and  Acts  of  Parliament.  He  has  begun  his  work  in  the 
only  temper  in  which  a  man  can  write  accurately  and  well :  in 
a  temper  of  trust  toward  the  generation  whom  he  describes. 
The  only  temper ;  for  if  a  man  has  no  affection  for  the  charac 
ters  of  whom  he  reads,  he  will  never  understand  them  ;  if  he 
has  no  respect  for  his  subject,  he  will  never  take  the  trouble  to 
exhaust  it.  To  such  an  author  the  Statutes  at  large,  as  the  de 
liberate  expression  of  the  nation's  will  and  conscience,  will  appear 
the  most  important  of  all  sources  of  information  ;  the  first  to  be 
consulted,  the  last  to  be  contradicted  ;  the  Canon,  which  is  not 
to  be  checked  and  corrected  by  private  letters  and  flying  pam 
phlets,  but  which  is  to  check  and  correct  them.  This  seems 
Mr.  Froude's  theory ;  and  we  are  at  no  pains  to  confess,  that 
if  he  be  wrong,  we  see  no  hope  of  arriving  at  truth.  If  these 
public  documents  are  not  to  be  admitted  in  evidence  before  all 
others,  we  see  no  hope  for  the  faithful  and  earnest  historian  ; 
he  must  give  himself  up  to  swim  as  he  may  on  the  frothy  stream 
of  private  letters,  anecdotes,  and  pamphlets,  the  puppet  of  the 
ignorance,  credulity,  peevishness,  spite,  of  any  and  every  gossip 
arid  scribbler. 

Beginning  his  history  with  the  fall  of  Wolsey,  Mr.  Fronde 
enters,  of  course,  at  his  first  step,  into  the  vexed  question  of 


436  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

Henry's  divorce  :  an  introductory  chapter,  on  the  general  state 
of  England,  we  shall  notice  hereafter. 

A  very  short  inspection  of  the  method  in  which  he  handles  his 
divorce  question,  gives  one  at  once  confidence  in  his  temper  and 
judgment,  and  hope  that  one  may  at  last  come  to  some  clearer 
understanding  of  it  than  the  old  law  gives  us,  which  we  have 
already  quoted,  concerning  the  dog  who  went  mad  to  serve  his 
private  ends.  In  a  few  masterly  pages  he  sketches  for  us  the 
rotting  and  dying  Church,  which  had  recovered  her  power  after 
the  wars  of  the  Roses,  over  an  exhausted  nation,  but  in  form 
only,  not  in  life.  Wolsey,  with  whom  he  has  fair  and  under 
standing  sympathy,  he  sketches  as  the  transition  minister,  "  lov 
ing  England  well,  but  loving  Rome  better,"  who  intends  a 
reform  of  the  Church,  but  who,  as  the  Pope's  commissioner  for 
that  very  purpose,  is  liable  to  a  praemunire,  and  therefore  dare 
not  appeal  to  Parliament  to  carry  out  his  designs,  even  if  he 
could  have  counted  on  the  Parliament's  assistance  in  any  mea 
sures  designed  to  invigorate  the  Church.  At  last  arises  in  the 
divorce  question,  the  accident  which  brings  to  an  issue  on  its  most 
vital  point  the  question  of  Papal  power  in  England,  and  which 
finally  draws  down  ruin  upon  Wolsey  himself. 

This  appears  to  have  happened  in  the  winter  of  1526-7.  It 
was  proposed  to  marry  the  Princess  Mary  to  a  son  of  the  French 
King.  The  Bishop  of  Tarbes,  who  conducted  the  negotiations, 
advised  himself  (apparently  by  special  instigation  of  the  devil) 
to  raise  a  question  as  to  her  legitimacy. 

No  more  ingenious  plan  for  convulsing  England  could  have 
been  devised.  The  marriage  from  which  Mary  sprang  only 
stood  on  a  reluctant  and  doubtful  dispensation  of  the  Pope's. 
Henry  had  entered  into  it  at  the  entreaty  of  his  ministers,  con 
trary  to  a  solemn  promise  given  to  his  father,  and  in  spite  of 
the  remonstrances  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  No  bless 
ing  seemed  to  have  rested  on  it.  All  his  children  had  died  young, 
save  his  one  sickly  girl ;  a  sure  note  of  divine  displeasure  in  the 
eyes  of  that  coarse-minded  Church  which  has  always  declared 
the  chief,  if  not  the  only,  purpose  of  marriage  to  be  the  procrea 
tion  of  children. 

But  more  ;  to  question  Mary's  legitimacy  was  to  throw  open 
the  question  of  succession  to  a  half-a-dozen  ambitious  competi 
tors.  It  was,  too,  probably  to  involve  England  at  Henry's 
death,  in  another  civil  war  of  the  Roses,  and  in  all  the  inter 
necine  horrors  which  were  still  rankling  in  the  memories  of  men, 
and  probably,  also,  to  bring  down  a  French  or  Scotch  invasion. 
There  was,  then,  too  good  reason,  Mr.  Froude  shows  at  length, 
for  Wolsey's  assertion  to  John  Cassilis — "  If  his  Holiness,  whi  ch 


ENGLAND  FROM  WOLSEY  TO  ELIZABETH.  437 

God  forbid,  shall  show  himself  unwilling  to  listen  to  the  King's 
demands,  to  me  assuredly  it  will  be  but  grief  to  live  longer,  for 
the  innumerable  evils  which  I  foresee  will  follow.  .  .  .  Nothing 
before  us  but  universal  and  inevitable  ruin."  Too  good  reason 
there  was  for  the  confession  of  the  Pope  himself  to  Gardiner, 
"  What  danger  it  was  to  the  realm  to  have  this  thing  hang  in 
suspense.  .  .  .  That  without  an  heir-male,  &c.,  the  realm  was 
like  to  come  to  dissolution."  Too  good  reason  for  the  bold  as 
sertion  of  the  Cardinal- Governor  of  Bologna,  that  "  he  knew 
the  guise  of  England  as  few  men  did,  and  that  if  the  King 
should  die  without  heirs-male,  he  was  sure  that  it  would  cost 
two  hundred  thousand  men's  lives  ;  and  that  to  avoid  this  mis 
chief  by  a  second  marriage,  he  thought,  would  deserve  heaven." 
Too  good  reason  for  the  assertion  of  Hall,  that  "  all  indifferent 
and  discreet  persons  judged  it  necessary  for  the  Pope  to  grant 
Henry  a  divorce,  and,  by  enabling  him  to  marry  again,  give 
him  the  hope  of  an  undisputed  heir-male."  The  Pope  had  full 
power  to  do  this ;  in  fact,  such  cases  had  been  for  centuries  in 
tegral  parts  of  his  jurisdiction,  as  head  of  Christendom.  He  was 
at  once  too  timid  and  too  time-serving  to  exercise  his  acknowl 
edged  authority ;  and  thus,  just  at  the  very  moment  when  his 
spiritual  power  was  being  tried  in  the  balance,  he  chose  him 
self  to  expose  his  political  power  to  the  same  test.  Both  were 
equally  found  wanting.  He  had,  it  appeared,  as  little  heart  to 
do  justice  among  kings  and  princes,  as  he  had  to  seek  and  to 
save  the  souls  of  men ;  and  the  Reformation  followed  as  a  matter 
of  course. 

Through  the  tangled  brakes  of  this  divorce  question,  Mr. 
Froude  leads  us  with  ease  and  grace,  throwing  light,  and  even 
beauty,  into  dark  nooks  where  before  all  was  mist,  not  merely  by 
his  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  facts,  but  still  more  by  his 
deep  knowledge  of  human  character,  and  of  woman's  even  more 
than  of  man's.  For  the  first  time,  the  actors  in  this  long  tragedy 
appear  to  us  as  no  mere  bodiless  and  soulless  names,  but  as 
beings  of  like  passions  with  ourselves,  comprehensible,  coherent, 
organic,  even  in  their  inconsistencies.  Catherine  of  Arragon  is 
still  the  Catherine  of  Shakspeare;  but  Mr.  Froude  has  given 
us  the  key  to  many  parts  of  her  story  which  Shakspeare  left 
unexplained,  and  delicately  enough  has  made  us  understand 
how  Henry's  affections,  if  he  ever  had  any  for  her — faithfully 
as  he  had  kept  (with  one  exception)  to  that  loveless  marriage  de 
convenance, — may  have  been  gradually  replaced  by  indifference 
and  even  dislike,  long  before  the  divorce  was  forced  on  him  as  a 
question  not  only  of  duty  to  the  nation,  but  of  duty  to  Heaven. 
And  that  he  did  see  in  it  this  latter  light,  Mr.  Froude  brings 


-438  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

proof  from  his  own  words,  from  which  we  can  escape  only  by 
believing  that  the  confessedly  honest  "  Bluff  King  Hal"  had  sud 
denly  become  a  consummate  liar  and  a  canting  hypocrite. 

Delicately,  too,  as  if  speaking  of  a  lady  whom  he  had  met  in 
modern  society  (as  a  gentleman  is  bound  to  do,)  does  Mr.  Froude 
touch  on  the  sins  of  that  hapless  woman,  who  played  for  Henry's 
crown,  and  paid  for  it  with  her  life.  With  all  mercy  and  cour 
tesy,  he  gives  us  proof  (for  he  thinks  it  his  duty  to  do  so)  of  the 
French  mis-education,  the  petty  cunning,  the  tendency  to  sensu 
ality,  the  wilful  indelicacy  of  her  position  in  Henry's  household 
as  the  rival  of  his  queen,  which  made  her  last  catastrophe  at 
least  possible.  Of  the  justice  of  her  sentence  he  has  no  doubt, 
any  more  than  of  her  pre-engagement  to  some  one,  as  proved  by 
a  letter  existing  among  Cromwell's  papers.  Poor  thing,  if  she 
did  that  which  was  laid  to  her  charge,  and  more,  she  did  nothing, 
after  all,  but  what  she  had  been  in  the  habit  of  seeing  the  queens 
and  princesses  of  the  French  court  do  notoriously,  and  laugh 
over  shamelessly ;  while,  as  Mr.  Froude  well  says,  "  If  we  are 
to  hold  her  entirely  free  from  guilt,  we  place  not  only  the  King, 
but  the  Privy-Council,  the  Judges,  the  Lords  and  Common?,  and 
the  two  Houses  of  Convocation,  in  a  position  fatal  to  their  honour 
and  degrading  to  ordinary  humanity ; "  (Mr.  Froude  should  have 
added  Anne  Boleyn's  own  uncle,  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  and  her 
father,  who  were  on  the  commission  appointed  to  try  her  lovers, 
and  her  cousin,  Anthony  St.  Leger,  a  man  of  the  very  highest 
character  and  ability,  who  was  on  the  jury  which  found  a  true 
bill  against  her.)  "  We  cannot,"  continues  Mr.  Froude,  "  ac 
quiesce  without  inquiry  in  so  painful  a  conclusion.  The  English 
nation,  also,  as  well  as  she,  deserves  justice  at  our  hands  ;  and  it 
cannot  be  thought  uncharitable  if  we  look  with  some  scrutiny  at 
the  career  of  a  person,  who,  but  for  the  catastrophe  with  which 
it  closed,  would  not  have  so  readily  obtained  forgiveness  for 
having  admitted  the  addresses  of  the  king,  or  for  having  received 
the  homage  of  the  court  as  its  future  sovereign,  while  the  king's 
wife,  her  mistress,  as  yet  resided  under  the  same  roof."  Mr. 
Froude's  conclusion  is,  after  examining  the  facts,  the  same  with 
the  whole  nation  of  England  in  Henry's  reign :  but  no  one  can 
accuse  him  of  want  of  sympathy  with  the  unhappy  woman,  who 
reads  the  eloquent  and  affecting  account  of  her  trial  and  death, 
which  ends  his  second  volume.  Our  only  fear  is,  that  by  having 
thus  told  the  truth,  he  has,  instead  of  justifying  our  ancestors, 
only  added  one  more  to  the  list  of  people  who  are  to  be  "  given 
up "  with  a  cynical  shrug  and  smile.  We  have  heard  already, 
and  among  young  ladies,  too,  who  can  be  as  cynical  as  Other 
people  in  these  times,  such  speeches  as,  "  Well,  I  suppose  he  has 


ENGLAND  FKOM  WOLSEY  TO  ELIZABETH.  439 

proved  Anne  Boleyn  to  be  a  bad  creature ;  but  that  does  not 
make  that  horrid  Henry  any  more  right  in  cutting  off  her  head." 
Thus  two  people  will  be  despised,  where  only  one  was  before  ; 
and  the  fact  still  ignored,  that  it  is  just  as  senseless  to  say  that 
Henry  cut  off  Anne  Boleyn's  head,  as  that  "Queen  Victoria 
hanged  Palmer.  Death,  and  death  of  a  far  more  horrible  kind 
than  that  which  Anne  Boleyn  suffered,  was-*  the  established 
penalty  of  the  offences  of  which  she  was  convicted ;  and  which 
had  in  her  case  this  fearful  aggravation,  that  they  were  offences 
not  against  Henry  merely,  but  against  the  whole  English  nation. 
She  had  been  married  in  order  that  there  might  be  an  undisputed 
heir  to  the  throne,  and  a  fearful  war  avoided.  To  throw  into 
dispute,  by  any  conduct  of  hers,  the  legitimacy  of  her  own  off 
spring,  argues  a  levity  or  a  hard-heartedness  which  of  itself 
deserved  the  severest  punishment. 

We  will  pass  from  this  disagreeable  topic,  to  Mr.  Froude's 
life-like  sketch  of  Pope  Clement,  and  the  endless  tracasseries 
into  which  his  mingled  weakness  and  cunning  led  him,  and 
which,  like  most  crooked  dealings,  ended  by  defeating  their  own 
object.  Pages  125  and  sqq.  of  Vol.  I.  contain  sketches  of  him, 
his  thoughts  and  ways,  as  amusing  as  they  are  historically  im 
portant  :  but  we  have  no  space  to  quote  from  them.  It  will  be 
well  for  those  to  whom  the  Reformation  is  still  a  matter  of 
astonishment,  to  read  those  pages,  and  consider  what  manner  of 
man  he  was,  in  spite  of  all  pretended  divine  authority,  under 
whose  rule  the  Romish  system  received  its  irrecoverable  wound. 

But  of  all  these  figures,  not  excepting  Henry's  own,  Wolsey 
stands  out  as  the  most  grand  and  tragical ;  and  Mr.  Froude  has 
done  good  service  to  history,  if  only  in  making  us  understand  at 
last  the  wondrous  "  butcher's  son."  Shakspeare  seems  to  have 
felt  (though  he  could  explain  the  reason  neither  to  his  auditors, 
nor,  perhaps,  to  himself)  that  Wolsey  was,  on  the  whole,  a  hero- 
ical  type  of  man.  Mr.  Froude  shows  at  once  his  strength  and 
his  weakness ;  his  deep  sense  of  the  rottenness  of  the  Church ; 
his  purpose  to  purge  her  from  those  abominations  which  were  as 
well  known,  it  seems,  to  him,  as  they  were  afterwards  to  the 
whole  people  of  England  ;  his  vast  schemes  for  education ;  his 
still  vaster  schemes  for  breaking  the  alliance  with  Spain,  and 
uniting  France  and  England  as  fellow-servants  of  the  Pope,  and 
twin-pillars  of  the  sacred  fabric  of  the  Church,  which  helped  so 
much  toward  his  interest  in  Catherine's  divorce,  as  a  "  means " 
(these  are  his  own  words)  "  to  bind  my  most  excellent  sovereign 
and  this  glorious  realm  to  the  holy  Roman  See  in  faith  and 
obedience  for  ever ; "  his  hopes  of  deposing  the  Emperor,  putting 
-down  the  German  heresies,  and  driving  back  the  Turks  beyond 


440  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

the  pale  of  Christendom ;  his  pathetic  confession  to  the  Bishop 
of  Bayonne,  that,  "  if  he  could  only  see  the  divorce  arranged,  the 
King  remarried,  the  succession  settled,  and  the  laws  and  the 
Church  reformed,  he  would  retire  from  the  world,  and  would 
serve  God  the  remainder  of  his  days." 

Peace  be  with  him  !  He  was  surely  a  noble  soul ;  misled,  it 
may  be,  (as  who  is  not  when  his  turn  comes,)  by  the  pride  of 
conscious  power ;  and  "  though  he  loved  England  well,  yet  loving 
Rome  better  : "  but  still  it  is  a  comfort  to  see,  either  in  past  or 
in  present,  one  more  brother  whom  we  need  not  despise,  even 
though  he  may  have  wasted  his  energies  on  a  dream. 

And  on  a  dream  he  did  waste  them,  in  spite  of  all  his  cunnino-. 
As  Mr.  Froude,  in  a  noble  passage  says  : — 

"  Extravagant  as^  his  hopes  seem,  the  prospect  of  realizing  them 
was,  humanly  speaking,  neither  chimerical,  nor  even  improbable.  He 
had  but  made  the  common  mistake  of  men  of  the  world,  who  are  the 
representatives  of  an  old  order  of  .things,  when  that  order  is  doomed 
and  dying.  He  could  not  read  the  signs  of  the  times;  and  confounding 
the  barrenness  of  death  with  the  barrenness  of  winter,  which  might  be 
followed  by  a  new  spring  and  summer,  he  believed  that  the  old  life- 
tree  of  Catholicism,  which  in  fact  was  but  cumbering  the  ground, 
might  bloom  again  in  its  old  beauty.  The  thing  which  he  called  heresy 
was  the  fire  of  Almighty  God,  which  no  politic  congregation  of  princes, 
no  state  machinery,  though  it  were  never  so  active,  could  trample  out ; 
and  as,  in  the  early  years  of  Christianity,  the  meanest  slave  who  was 
thrown  to  the  wild  beasts  for  his  presence  at  the  forbidden  mysteries 
of  the  Gospel,  saw  deeper,  in  the  divine  power  of  his  faith,  into  the 
future  even  of  this  earthly  world  than  the  safest  of  his  imperial  perse 
cutors,— so  a  truer  political  prophet  than  Wolsey  would  have  been 
found  in  the  most  ignorant  of  those  poor  men,  for  whom  his  police 
were  searching  in  the  purlieus  of  London,  who  were  risking  death  and 
torture  in  disseminating  the  pernicious  volumes  of  the  English  Testa 
ment." 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  magnificent  passage  that  Mr.  Froude 
is  distinctly  a  Protestant.  He  is  one,  to  judge  from  his  book ; 
and  all  the  better  one,  because  he  can  sympathize  with  whatso 
ever  nobleness,  even  with  whatsoever  mere  conservatism,  existed 
in  the  Catholic  party.  And  therefore,  because  he  has  sympathies 
which  are  not  merely  party  ones,  but  human  ones,  he  has  given 
the  world,  in  these  two  volumes,  a  history  of  the  early  Reforma 
tion  altogether  unequalled.  In  this  human  sympathy,  while  it  has 
enabled  him  to  embalm  in  most  affecting  prose  the  sad  story  of 
the  noble,  though  mistaken  Carthusians,  and  to  make  even  the 
Nun  of  Kent  interesting,  because  truly  womanly,  in  her  very 
folly  and  deceit,  has  enabled  him  likewise  to  show  us  the  hearts 
of  the  early  martyrs  as  they  never  have  been  shown  before. 


ENGLAND  FROM  WOLSEY  TO  ELIZABETH.  441 

His  sketch  of  the  Christian  brothers,  and  his  little  true  romance 
of  Anthony  Dalaber,  the  Oxford  student,  are  gems  of  writing  ; 
while  his  conception  of  Latimer,  on  whom  he  looks  as  the  hero 
of  the  movement,  and  all  but  an  English  Luther,  is  as  worthy  of 
Latimer  as  it  is  of  himself.  Written  as  history  should  be,  dis 
criminatingly,  patiently,  and  yet  lovingly  and  genially,  rejoicing 
not  in  evil,  but  in  the  truth,  and  rejoicing  still  more  in  goodness, 
where  goodness  can  honestly  be  found. 

To  the  ecclesiastical  and  political  elements  in  the  English  Re 
formation,  Mr.  Froude  devotes  a  large  portion  of  his  book.  We 
shall  not  enter  into  the  questions  which  he  discusses  therein. 
That  aspect  of  the  movement  is  a  foreign  and  a  delicate  subject, 
from  discussing  which  a  Scotch  periodical  may  be  excused. 
North  Britain  had  a  somewhat  different  problem  to  solve  from 
her  southern  sister,  and  solved  it  in  an  altogether  different  way : 
but  this  we  must  say,  that  the  facts,  and  still  more,  the  State- 
Papers,  (especially  the  petition  of  the  Commons,  as  contrasted 
with  the  utterly  benighted  answer  of  the  Bishops,)  which  Mr. 
Froude  gives,  are  such  as  to  raise  our  opinion  of  the  method  on 
which  the  English  part  of  the  Reformation  was  conducted,  and 
make  us  believe,  that  in  this,  as  in  other  matters,  both  Henry 
and  his  Parliament,  though  still  doctrinal  Romanists,  were  sound- 
headed  practical  Englishmen. 

This  result  is  of  the  same  kind  as  most  of  those  at*  which  Mr. 
Froude  arrives.  They  form  altogether  a  general  justification  of 
our  ancestors  in  Henry  the  Eighth's  time,  if  not  of  Henry  the 
Eighth  himself,  which  frees  Mr.  Froude  from  that  charge  of 
irreverence  to  the  past  generations,  against  which  we  protested 
in  the  beginning  of  this  Article.  We  hope  honestly  that  he  may 
be  as  successful  in  his  next  volumes  as  he  has  been  in  these,  in 
vindicating  the  worthies  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Whether  he 
shall  fail  or  not,  and  whether  or  not  he  has  altogether  succeeded, 
in  the  volumes  before  us,  his  book  marks  a  new  epoch,  and,  we 
trust,  a  healthier  and  loftier  one,  in  English  history.  We  trust 
that  they  inaugurate  a  time  in  wrhich  the  deeds  of  our  forefathers 
shall  be  looked  on  as  sacred  heirlooms ;  their  sins  as  our  shame, 
their  victories  as  bequests  to  us ;  when  men  shall  have  sufficient 
confidence  in  those  to  whom  they  owe  their  existence,  to  scru 
tinize  faithfully  and  patiently  every  fact  concerning  them,  with  a 
proud  trust,  that,  search  as  they  may,  they  will  not  find  much  of 
which  to  be  ashamed. 

Lastly,  Mr.  Froude  takes  a  view  of  Henry's  character,  not, 
indeed,  new,  (for  it  is  the  original  one,)  but  obsolete  for  now 
two  hundred  years.  Let  it  be  well  understood,  that  he  makes 
no  attempt  (he  has  been  accused  thereof)  to  whitewash  Henry : 

19* 


442  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

all  that  he  does  is,  to  remove  as  far  as  he  can,  the  modern  layers 
of  "  blackwash,"  and  to  let  the  man  himself,  fair  or  foul,  be  seen. 
For  the  result  he  is  not  responsible :  it  depends  on  facts  ;  and 
unless  Mr.  Froude  has  knowingly  concealed  facts,  to  an  amount 
of  which  even  a  Lingard  might  be  ashamed,  the  result  is,  that 
Henry  the  Eighth  was  actually  very  much  the  man  which  he 
appeared  to  be  to  the  English  nation  in  his  own  generation,  and 
for  two  or  three  generations  after  his  death, — a  result  which  need 
not  astonish  us,  if  we  will  only  give  our  ancestors  credit  for  hav 
ing,  at  least,  as  much  common  sense  as  ourselves,  and  believe 
(why  should  we  not  ?)  that,  on  the  whole,  they  understood  their 
own  business  better  than  we  are  likely  to  do. 

The  "  bloated  tyrant,"  it  is  confessed,  contrived,  somehow  or 
other,  to  be  popular  enough.  Mr.  Froude  tells  us  the  reasons. 
He  was  not  born  a  bloated  tyrant,  any  more  than  Queen  Eliza 
beth  (though  the  fact  is  not  generally  known)  was  born  a  wizened 
old  woman.  He  was,  from  youth,  till  he  was  long  past  his  grand 
climacteric,  a  very  handsome,  powerful,  and  active  man,  temper 
ate  in  his  habits,  good-humoured,  frank  and  honest  in  his  speech, 
(as  even  his  enemies  are  forced  to  confess.)  He  seems  to  have 
been,  (as  his  portraits  prove  sufficiently,)  for  good  and  for  evil,  a 
thorough  John  Bull ;  a  thorough  Englishman  :  but  one  of  the 
very  highest  type. 

"  Had  he  died,"  says  Mr.  Froude,  "  previous  to  the  first  agitation  of 
the  divorce,  his  loss  would  have  been  deplored  as  one  of  the  heaviest 
misfortunes  which  had  ever  befallen  this  country,  and  he  would^  have 
left  a  name  which  would  have  taken  its  place  in  history  by  the  side  of 
the  Black  Prince,  or  the  Conqueror  of  Ag-mcourt.  Left  at  the  most 
trying  age,  with  his  character  unformed,  with  the  means  of  gratifying 
every  inclination,  and  married  by  his  ministers,  when  a  boy,  to  an 
unattractive  woman,  far  his  senior,  he  had  lived  for  thirty-six  years 
almost  without  blame,  and  bore  through  England  the  reputation  of  an 
upright  and  virtuous  king.  Nature  had  been  prodigal  to  him  of  her 

rarest   gifts Of  his   intellectual  ability  we   are  not   left  to 

judge  from  the  suspicious  panegyrics  of  his  contemporaries.  His 
State  Papers  and  letters  may  be  placed  by  the  side  of  those  of  Wolsey, 
or  of  Cromwell,  and  they  lose  nothing  by  the  comparison.  Though 
they  are  broadly  different,  the  perception  is  equally  clear,  the  expres 
sion  equally  powerful ;  and  they  breathe  throughout  an  irresistible 
vigour  of  purpose.  In  addition  to  this  he  had  a  fine  musical  taste, 
carefully  cultivated  ;  he  spoke  and  wrote  in  four  languages  ;  and  his 
knowledge  of  a  multitude  of  subjects,  with  which  his  versatile  ability 
made  him  conversant,  would  have  formed  the  reputation  of  any  ordi 
nary  man.  He  was  among  the  best  physicians  of  his  age.  He  was 
his  own  engineer,  inventing  improvements  in  artillery,  and  new  con 
structions  in  shipbuilding ;  and  this  not  with  the  condescending  inca 
pacity  of  a  royal  amateur,  but  with  thorough  workmanlike  understand- 


ENGLAND    FROM  WOLSEY  TO  ELIZABETH.  443 

ing.  His  reading  was  vast,  especially  in  theology.  He  was  '  attentive,' 
as  it  is  called,  '  to  his  religious  duties,'  being  present  at  the  services  in 
chapel  two  or  three  times  a  day  with  unfailing  regularity,  and  show 
ing,  to  outward  appearance,  a  real  sense  of  religious  obligation  in  the 
energy  and  purity  of  his  life.  In  private  he  was  good-humoured  and 
good-natured.  His  letters  to  his  secretaries,  though  never  undignified, 
are  simple,  easy,  and  unrestrained,  and  the  letters  written  by  them  to 
him  are  similarly  plain  and  business-like,  as  if  the  writers  knew  that 
the  person  whom  they  were  addressing  disliked  compliments,  and  chose 
to  be  treated  as  a  man.  He  seems  to  have  been  always  kind,  always 
considerate ;  inquiring  into  their  private  concerns,  with  genuine  in 
terest,  and  winning,  as  a  consequence,  their  sincere  and  unaffected 
attachment.  As  a  ruler,  he  had  been  eminently  popular.  All  his 
wars  had  been  successful.  He  had  the  splendid  tastes  in  which  the 

English  people  most  delighted  ; he  had  more  than  once  been 

tried  with  insurrection,  which  he  had  soothed  down  without  bloodshed, 

and  extinguished  in  forgiveness And  it  is  certain,  that  if  he 

had  died  before  the  divorce  was  mooted,  Henry  the  Eighth,  like  the 
Roman  emperor  said  by  Tacitus  to  have  been  consensu  omnium 
dignus  imperil  nisi  imperasset,  would  have  been  considered,  by  pos 
terity,  as  formed  by  Providence  for  the  conduct  of  the  Reformation, 
and  his  loss  would  have  been  deplored  as  a  perpetual  calamity." 

Mr.  Froude  has,  of  course,  not  written  these  words  without 
having  facts  whereby  to  prove  them.  One  he  gives  in  an  im 
portant  note  containing  an  extract  from  a  letter  of  the  Venetian 
ambassador  in  1515.  At  least,  if  his  conclusions  be  correct,  we 
must  think  twice  ere  we  deny  his  assertion,  that  "  the  man  best 
able  of  all  living  Englishmen,  to  govern  England,  had  been  set 
to  do  it  by  the  conditions  of  his  birth." 

"  We  are  bound,"  as  Mr.  Froude  says,  "  to  allow  him  the 
benefit  of  his  past  career,  and  be  careful  to  remember  it,  in  inter 
preting  his  later  actions."  "  The  true  defect  in  his  moral  consti 
tution,  that  '  intense  and  imperious  will,'  common  to  all  princes 
of  the  Plantagenet  blood,  had  not  yet  been  tested."  That  he  did, 
in  his  later  years,  act  in  many  ways  neither  wisely  nor  well,  no 
one  denies  ;  that  this  conduct  did  not  alienate  the  hearts  of  his 
subjects,  is  what  needs  explanation ;  and  Mr.  Froude's  opinions 
on  this  matter,  novel  as  they  are,  and  utterly  opposed  to  that  of 
the  standard  modern  historians,  require  careful  examination. 
Now  we  are  not  inclined  to  debate  Henry  the  Eighth's  character, 
or  any  other  subject,  as  between  Mr.  Froude,  and  an  author  of 
the  obscurantist  or  pseudo-conservative  school.  Mr.  Froude  is  a 
Liberal ;  and  so  are  we.  We  wish  to  look  at  the  question  as 
between  Mr.  Froude  and  other  Liberals :  and,  therefore,  of 
course,  first,  as  between  Mr.  Froude  and  Mr.  Hallam. 

Mr.  Hallam's  name  is  so  venerable,  and  his  work  so  impor 
tant,  that,  to  set  ourselves  up  as  judges  in  this,  or  in  any  matter, 


444  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

between  him  and  Mr.  Froude,  would  be  mere  impertinence  :  but 
speaking  merely  as  learners,  we  have  surely  a  right  to  inquire, 
why  Mr.  Hallam  has  entered  on  the  whole  question  of  Henry's 
relations  to  his  Parliament  with  a  prcejudicium  against  them  ; 
for  which  Mr.  Froude  finds  no  ground  whatsoever  in  fact.  All 
acts  both  of  Henry  and  his  Parliament  are  to  be  taken  in  malam 
partem.  They  were  not  Whigs,  certainly :  neither  were  Soc 
rates  and  Plato,  nor  even  St.  Paul  and  St.  John.  They  may 
have  been  honest  men,  as  men  go,  or  they  may  not :  but  why  is 
there  to  be  a  feeling  against  them,  rather  than  for  them  ?  Why 
is  Henry  always  called  a  tyrant,  and  his  Parliament  servile  ? 
The  epithets  have  become  so  common  and  unquestioned,  that  our 
interrogation  may  seem  startling.  Still  we  make  it.  Why  was 
Henry  a  tyrant  ?  That  may  be  true,  but  must  be  proved  by 
facts.  Where  are  they  ?  Is  the  mere  fact  of  a  monarch's  ask 
ing  for  money  a  crime  in  him  and  in  his  ministers  ?  The  ques 
tion  would  rather  seem  to  be,  Were  the  moneys  for  which  Henry 
asked  needed  or  not,  and  when  granted,  were  they  rightly  or 
wrongly  applied  ?  And  on  these  subjects  we  want  much  more 
information  than  we  obtain  from  Mr.  Hallam's  epithets.  The 
author  of  a  constitutional  history  should  rise  above  epithets  ;  or, 
if  he  uses  them,  should  corroborate  them  by  facts.  Why  should 
not  Mr.  Hallam  be  as  fair  and  as  cautious  in  accusing  Henry 
and  Wolsey,  as  he  would  be  in  accusing  Queen  Victoria  and 
Lord  Palmerston  ?  What  right,  allow  us  to  ask,  has  a  grave 
constitutional  historian  to  say,  that  "  We  cannot,  indeed,  doubt, 
that  the  unshackled  and  despotic  condition  of  his  friend,  Francis 
the  First,  afforded  a  mortifying  contrast  to  Henry  ? "  What 
document  exists,  in  which  Henry  is  represented  as  regretting 
that  he  is  the  king  of  a  free  people  ? — for  such  Mr.  Hallam  con 
fesses  just  above,  England  was  held  to  be,  and  was  actually,  in 
comparison  of  France.  If  the  document  does  not  exist,  Mr. 
Hallam  has  surely  stepped  out  of  the  field  of  the  historian  into 
that  of  the  novelist,  a  la  Scott  or  Dumas.  The  Parliament 
sometimes  grants  Henry's  demands  ;  sometimes  it  refuses  them, 
and  he  has  to  help  himself  by  other  means.  Why  are  both  cases 
to  be  interpreted  in  malam  partem  ?  Why  is  the  Parliament's 
granting  to  be  always  a  proof  of  its  servility  ? — its  refusing, 
always  a  proof  of  Henry's  tyranny  and  rapacity  ?  Both  views 
are  mere  prcejudicia,  reasonable  perhaps,  and  possible  :  but  why 
is  a  prcejudium  of  the  opposite  kind  as  rational  and  as  possible  ? 
Why  has  not  a  historian  a  right  to  start,  as  Mr.  Froude  does, 
by  taking  for  granted,  that  both  parties  may  have  been  on  the 
whole  right ;  that  the  Parliament  granted  certain  sums,  because 
Henry  was  right  in  asking  for  them  ;  refused  others  because 


ENGLAND   FROM  WOLSEY  TO  ELIZABETH.  445 

Henry  was  wrong ;  even  that,  in  some  cases,  Henry  may  have 
been  right  in  asking,  the  Parliament  wrong  in  refusing ;  and 
that  in  such  a  case,  under  the  pressure  of  critical  times,  Henry 
was  forced  to  get,  as  he  could,  the  money,  which  lie  saw  that  the 
national  cause  required  ?  Let  it  be  as  folks  will.  Let  Henry 
be  sometimes  right,  and  the  Parliament  sometimes  likewise  ;  or 
the  Parliament  always  right,  or  Henry  always  right;  or  any 
thing  else,  save  this  strange  diseased  theory,  that  both  must  have 
been  always  wrong,  and  that,  evidence  to  that  effect  failing, 
motives  must  be  insinuated,  or  openly  asserted,  from  the  writer's 
mere  imagination.  This  may  be  a  dream  :  but  it  is  as  easy  to 
imagine  as  the  other,  and  more  pleasant  also.  It  will  probably 
be  answered  (though  not  by  Mr.  Hallam.  himself)  by  a  sneer : 
"  You  do  not  seem  to  know  much  of  the  world,  Sir.  So  would 
Figaro  and  Gil  Bias  have  said,  Sir ;  and  on  exactly  the  same 
grounds  as  you  do." 

Let  us  examine  a  stock  instance  of  Henry's  "  rapacity  "  and 
his  Parliament's  servility,  namely,  the  exactions  in  1524  and 
1525,  and  the  subsequent  "release  of  the  king's  debts,"  which  a 
late  writer, — in  a  Review  conducted  by  University  men,  and 
therefore,  one  would  have  supposed,  superior  to  the  stale  and 
dangerous  habit  of  reviewing  one  book  by  another, — quoted  the 
other  day,  second-hand,  out  of  Hallam,  as  a  "  settler "  to  Mr. 
Froude's  view  of  Henry  and  his  Parliament.  What  are  the 
facts  of  the  case  ?  France  and  Scotland  had  attacked  England 
in  1514.  The  Scotch  were  beaten  at  Flodden.  The  French 
lost  Tournay  and  Therotmne,  and,  when  peace  was  made,  agreed 
to  pay  the  expenses  of  the  war.  Times  changed,  and  the  ex- 
p  enses  were  not  paid. 

A  similar  war  arose  in  1524,  and  cost  England  immense  sums. 
A  large  army  was  maintained  on  the  Scotch  border,  another 
army  invaded  France ;  and  Wolsey,  not  venturing  to  call  Par 
liament, — because  he  was,  as  Pope's  legate,  liable  to  a  pra3- 
munire, — raised  money  by  contributions  and  benevolences,  which 
were  levied,  it  seems,  on  the  whole,  uniformly  and  equally,  (save 
that  they  weighed  more  heavily  on  the  rich  than  on  the  poor,  if 
that  be  a  fault,)  and  differed  from  taxes  only  in  not  having  re 
ceived  the  consent  of  Parliament.  Doubtless,  this  was  not  the 
best  way  of  raising  money  ;  but  what  if,  under  the  circumstances, 
it  were  the  only  one  ?  What  if,  too,  on  the  whole,  the  money  so 
raised  was  really  given  willingly  by  the  nation  ?  The  sequel 
alone  could  decide  that. 

The  first  contribution  for  which  Wolsey  asked  was  paid.  The 
second  was  resisted,  and  was  not  paid,  proving  thereby  that  the 


446  KINGSLEY'S   MISCELLANIES. 

nation  need  not  pay  unless  it  chose.  The  Court  gave  way ;  and 
the  war  became  defensive  only,  till  1525. 

Then  the  tide  turned.  The  danger,  then,  was  not  from  Francis, 
but  from  the  Emperor.  Francis  was  taken  prisoner  at  Pavia ; 
and  shortly  after,  Rome  was  sacked  by  Bourbon. 

The  effect  of  all  this  in  England  is  told  at  large  in  Mr. 
Froude's  second  chapter.  Henry  became  bond  for  Francis's 
ransom,  to  be  paid  to  the  Emperor.  He  spent  500,000  crowns 
more  in  paying  the  French  army ;  and  in  the  terms  of  peace 
made  with  France,  a  sum-total  was  agreed  on  for  the  whole  debt, 
old  and  new,  to  be  paid  as  soon  as  possible ;  and  an  annual  pen 
sion  of  500,000  crowns  beside.  The  French  exchequer,  how 
ever,  still  remained  bankrupt,  and  again  the  money  was  not 
paid. 

Parliament,  when  it  met  in  1529,  reviewed  the  circumstances 
of  the  expenditure,  and  finding  it  all  such  as  the  nation  on  the 
whole  approved,  legalized  the  taxation,  by  benevolences,  retro 
spectively  ;  and  this  is  the  whole  mare's  nest  of  the  first  payment 
of  Henry's  debts ;  if,  at  least,  any  faith  is  to  be  put  in  the  pre 
amble  of  the  Act  for  the  release  of  the  King's  Debts,  21  Hen. 
VIII.  c.  24.  "  The  King's  loving  subjects,  the  Lords  Spiritual 
and  Temporal,  and  Commons,  in  this  present  Parliament  assem 
bled,  calling  to  remembrance  the  inestimable  costs,  charges,  and 
expenses  which  the  King's  Highness  hath  necessarily  been  com 
pelled  to  support  and  sustain  since  his  assumption  to  his  crown, 
estate,  and  dignity  royal,  as  well  for  the  extinction  of  a  right 
dangerous  and  damnable  schism,  sprung  in  the  Church,  as  for 
the  modifying  the  insatiable  and  inordinate  ambition  of  them, 
who,  while  aspiring  to  the  monarchy  of  Christendom,  did  put 
universal  troubles  and  divisions  in  the  same,  intending,  if  they 
might,  not  only  to  have  subdued  this  realm,  but  also  all  the  rest, 
unto  their  power  and  subjection — for  resistance  whereof,  the 
King's  Highness  was  compelled  to  marvellous  charges — both  for 
the  supportation  of  sundry  armies  by  sea  and  land,  and  also  for 
divers  and  manifold  contribution  on  hand,  to  save  and  keep  his 
own  subjects  at  home  in  rest  and  repose — which  hath  been  so 
politically  handled,  that  when  the  most  part  of  all  Christian  lands 
have  been  infested  with  cruel  wars,  the  great  Head  and  Prince 
of  the  world  [the  Pope !]  brought  into  captivity,  cities  and  towns 
taken,  spoiled,  burnt,  and  sacked — the  King's  said  subjects  in  all 
this  time,  by  the  high  providence  and  politic  means  of  his  Grace, 
have  been  nevertheless  preserved,  defended,  and  maintained  from 
all  these  inconvenients,  &c. 

"  Considering,  furthermore,  that  his  Highness,  in  and  about 
the  premises,  hath  been  fain  to  employ  not  only  all  such  sums  of 


ENGLAND  FKOM  WOLSEY  TO  ELIZABETH.  447 

money  as  hath  risen  and  grown  by  contributions  made  unto  his 
Grace  by  his  loving  subjects — but  also,  over  and  above  the  same, 
sundry  other  notable  and  excellent  sums  of  his  own  treasure  and 
yearly  revenues,  among  which  manifold  great  sums  so  employed, 
his  Highness,  also,  as  is  notoriously  known,  and  as  doth  evidently 
appear  by  the  ACCOUNTS  OF  THE  SAME,  hath  to  that  use,  and 
none  other,  converted  all  such  money  as  by  any  of  his  subjects  hath 
been  advanced  to  his  Grace  by  way  of  prest  or  loan,  either  par 
ticularly,  or  by  any  taxation  made  of  the  same — being  things  so 
well  collocate  and  bestowed,  seeing  the  said  high  and  great  fruits 
and  effects  thereof  insured  to  the  surety  and  commodity  and 
tranquillity  of  this  realm — of  our  mind  and  consent,  do  freely, 
absolutely,  give  and  grant  to  the  King's  Highness  all  and  every 
sum  or  sums  of  money,"  &c. 

The  second  release  of  the  King's  debts,  in  1544,  is  very  simi 
lar.  The  King's  debts  and  necessities  were  really,  when  we 
come  to  examine  them,  those  of  the  nation;  in  1538-40  England 
was  put  into  a  thorough  state  of  defence  from  end  to  end.  For 
tresses  were  built  along  the  Scottish  border,  and  all  along  the 
coast  opposite  France  and  Flanders.  The  people  were  drilled 
and  armed,  the  fleet  equipped  ;  and  the  nation,  for  the  time,  be 
came  one  great  army.  And  nothing  but  this,  as  may  be  proved 
by  an  overwhelming  mass  of  evidence,  saved  the  country  from 
invasion.  Here  were  enormous  necessary  expenses  which  must 
be  met. 

In  1543,  a  million  crowns  were  to  have  been  paid  by  Francis 
the  First,  as  part  of  his  old  debt.  And  it  was  not  paid,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  Henry  had  to  go  to  war  for  it.  The  nation  again 
relinquished  their  claim,  and  allowed  Henry  to  raise  another  be 
nevolence  in  1545,  concerning  which  Mr.  Hallam  tells  us  a  great 
deal,  but  not  one  word  of  the  political  circumstances  which  led 
to  it  or  to  the  release,  keeping  his  sympathies  and  his  paper  for 
the  sorrows  of  refractory  Alderman  Reed,  who,  refusing  (alone 
of  all  the  citizens)  to  contribute  to  the  support  of  troops  on  the 
Scotch  border  or  elsewhere,  was  sent  down,  by  a  sort  of  rough 
justice,  to  serve  on  the  Scotch  border  himself,  and  judge  of  the 
"  perils  of  the  nation "  with  his  own  eyes  ;  arid  being  (one  is 
pleased  to  say)  taken  prisoner  by  the  Scots,  had  to  pay  a  great 
deal  more  as  ransom  than  he  would  have  paid  as  benevolence. 

But  to  return.  What  proof  is  there  in  all  this,  of  that  servil 
ity  which  most  historians,  and  Mr.  Hallam  among  the  rest,  are 
wont  to  attribute  to  Henry's  Parliaments  ?  What  feeling  appears 
on  the  face  of  this  document,  which  we  have  given  and  quoted, 
but  one  honourable  to  the  nation  ?  Through  the  falsehood  of  a 
foreign  nation,  the  King  is  unable  to  perform  his  engagements  to 


448  KINGSLEY'S    MISCELLANIES. 

the  people.  Is  not  the  just  and  generous  course  in  such  a  case, 
to  release  him  from  those  engagements?  Does  this  preamble, 
does  a  single  fact  of  the  case,  justify  historians  in  talking  of 
these  "  king's  debts  "  in  just  the  same  tone  as  that  in  which  they 
would  have  spoken  of  George  the  Fourth's  or  the  Duke  of 
York's  ?  as  if  the  King  had  squandered  the  money  on  private 
pleasures  ?  Perhaps  most  people  who  write  small  histories,  be 
lieve  that  this  really  was  the  case.  They  certainly  would  gather 
no  other  impression  from  the  pages  of  Mr.  Hallam.  No  doubt, 
the  act  must  have  been  burdensome  on  some  people.  Many,  we 
are  told,  had  bequeathed  their  promissory  notes  to  their  children, 
used  their  reversionary  interest  in  the  loan  in  many  ways ;  and 
these,  of  course,  felt  the  change  very  heavily.  No  doubt ;  but 
why  have  we  not  a  right  to  suppose  that  the  Parliament  were 
aware  of  that  fact;  but  chose  it  as  the  less  of  the  two  evils? 
The  King  had  spent  the  money ;  he  was  unable  to  recover  it 
from  Francis,  could  only  refund  it  by  raising  some  fresh  tax  or 
benevolence  ;  and  why  may  not  the  Parliament  have  considered 
the  release  of  old  taxes  likely  to  offend  fewer  people  than  the 
imposition  of  new  ones  ?  It  is,  certainly,  an  ugly  thing  to  break 
public  faith  ;  but  to  prove  that  public  faith  was  broken,  we  must 
prove  that  Henry  compelled  the  Parliament  to  release  him ;  if 
the  act  was  of  their  own  free  will,  no  public  faith  was  broken, 
for  they  were  the  representatives  of  the  nation,  and  through 
them,  the  nation  forgave  its  own  debt.  And  what  evidence  have 
we  that  they  did  not  represent  the  nation,  and  that,  on  the  whole, 
we  must  suppose,  as  we  should  in  the  case  of  any  other  men, 
that  they  best  knew  their  own  business  ?  May  we  not  apply  to 
this  case,  and  to  others,  mutatis  mutandis,  the  argument  which 
Mr.  Froude  uses  so  boldly  and  well  in  the  case  of  Anne  Boleyn's 
trial — "  The  English  nation  also,  as  well  as  .  .  .  deserves  justice 
at  our  hands." 

Certainly  it  does ;  but  it  is  a  disagreeable  token  of  the  method 
on  which  we  have  been  accustomed  to  write  the  history  of  our 
own  forefather?,  that  Mr.  Froude  should  find  it  necessary  to  state 
formally  so  very  simple  a  truth. 

What  proof,  we  ask  again,  is  there  that  this  old  parliament 
was  "  servile  ? "  Had  that  been  so,  Wolsey  would  not  have 
been  afraid  to  summon  it.  The  specific  reason  for  not  summon 
ing  a  Parliament  for  six  years  after  that  of  1524,  was,  that  they 
were  not  servile ;  that  when  (here  we  are  quoting  Mr.  Hallam, 
and  not  Mr.  Froude)  Wolsey  entered  the  House  of  Commons 
with  a  great  train,  seemingly  for  the  purpose  of  intimidation, 
they  "  made  no  other  answer  to  his  harangues,  than  that  it  was 
their  usage  to  debate  only  among  themselves."  The  debates  on 


ENGLAND  FROM  WOLSEY  TO  ELIZABETH.  449 

this  occasion  lasted  fifteen  or  sixteen  days,  during  which,  says  an 
eye-witness,  "there  has  been  the  greatest  and  sorest  hold  in  the 
Lower  House,  'the  matter  debated  and  beaten;'  such  hold  that 
the  House  was  like  to  have  been  dissevered  ; "  in  a  word,  hard 
fighting  (and  why  not  honest  fighting  ?)  between  the  court  party 
and  the  opposition,  "  which  ended,"  says  Mr.  Hallam,  "  in  the 
court  party  obtaining,  with  the  utmost  difficulty,  a  grant  much 
inferior  to  the  Cardinal's  original  requisition."  What  token  of 
servility  is  here  ? 

And  is  it  reasonable  to  suppose,  that  after  Wolsey  was  con 
quered,  and  a  comparatively  popular  ministry  had  succeeded, 
and  that  memorable  Parliament  of  1529,  (which  Mr.  Froude, 
riot  unjustly,  thinks  more  memorable  than  the  Long  Parliament 
itself,)  began  its  great  work  with  a  high  hand,  backed  not  merely 
by  the  King,  but  by  the  public  opinion  of  the  majority  of  Eng 
land,  their  decisions  are  likely  to  have  been  more  servile  than 
before  ?  If  they  resisted  the  King  when  they  disagreed  with 
him,  are  they  to  be  accused  of  servility  because  they  worked 
with  him  when  they  agreed  with  him  ?  Is  an  opposition  always 
in  the  right ;  a  ministerial  party  always  in  the  wrong  ?  Is  it  an 
offence  against  the  people  to  agree  with  a  monarch,  even  when 
he  agrees  with  the  people  himself?  Simple  as  these  questions 
are,  one  must  really  stop  to  ask  them. 

No  doubt,  pains  were  often  taken  to  secure  elections  favour 
able  to  the  Government.  Are  none  taken  now  ?  Are  not  more 
taken  now  ?  Will  any  historian  show  us  the  documents  which 
prove  the  existence,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  of  Reform  Club, 
Carlton  Club,  whippers-in  and  nominees,  governmental  and  op 
position,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  beautiful  machinery  which  pro 
tects  our  Reformed  Parliament  from  the  evil  influences  of  bribery 
and  corruption  ?  Pah ! — We  have  somewhat  too  much  glass  in 
our  modern  House,  to  afford  to  throw  stones  at  our  forefathers' 
old  St.  Stephen's.  At  the  worst,  what  was  done  then  but  that 
without  which  it  is  said  to  be  impossible  to  carry  on  a  govern 
ment  now  ?  Take  an  instance  from  the  Parliament  of  1539,  one 
in  which  there  is  no  doubt  Government  influence  was  used,  in 
order  to  prevent  as  much  as  possible  the  return  of  members 
favourable  to  the  clergy — for  the  good  reason,  that  the  clergy 
were  no  doubt  on  their  own  side  intimidating  voters  by  all  those 
terrors  of  the  unseen  world,  which  had  so  long  been  to  them  a 
source  of  boundless  profit  and  power. 

Cromwell  writes  to  the  King  to  say  that  he  has  secured  a 
seat  for  a  certain  Sir  Richard  Morrison,  but  for  what  purpose  ? 
As  one  who  no  doubt  "  should  be  ready  to  answer  and  take  up 
such  as  should  crack  or  face  with  literature  of  learning,  if  any 


450  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

such  should  he."  There  was,  then,  free  discussion;  they  ex 
pected  clever  and  learned  speakers  in  the  opposition,  and  on 
subjects  of  the  deepest  import,  not  merely  political  but  spiritual ; 
and  the  Government  needed  men  to  answer  such.  What  more 
natural,  than  that  so  close  on  the  "  pilgrimage  of  grace,"  and  in 
the  midst  of  so  great  dangers,  at  home  and  abroad,  the  Govern 
ment  should  have  done  their  best  to  secure  a  well-disposed 
House,  (one  would  like  to  know  when  they  would  not?)  but 
surely  the  very  effort,  (confessedly  exceptional,)  and  the  acknowl 
edged  difficulty,  prove  that  Parliament  were  no  mere  "  registrars 
of  edicts." 

But  the  strongest  argument  against  the  tyranny  of  the  Tudors, 
and  especially  of  Henry  VIII.  in  his  "benevolences,"  is  derived 
from  the  state  of  the  people  themselves.  If  these  benevolences 
had  been  really  unpopular,  they  would  not  have  been  paid.  In 
one  case,  we  have  seen,  a  benevolence  was  not  paid  for  that  very 
reason.  For  the  method  of  the  Tudor  sovereigns,  like  that  of 
their  predecessors,  was  the  very  opposite  to  that  of  tyrants,  in 
every  age  and  country.  The  first  act  of  a  tyrant  has  always 
been  to  disarm  the  people,  and  to  surround  themselves  with  a 
standing  army.  The  Tudor  method  was,  as  Mr.  Froude  shows 
us  by  many  interesting  facts,  to  keep  the  people  armed  and 
drilled,  even  to  compel  them  to  learn  the  use  of  weapons. 
Throughout  England  spread  one  vast  military  organization,  which 
made  every  adult  a  soldier,  and  enabled  him  to  find,  at  a  day's 
notice,  his  commanding  officer,  landlord,  sheriff,  or  lieutenant  of 
the  county ;  so  that,  as  a  foreign  ambassador  of  the  time  remarks 
with  astonishment,  (we  quote  from  memory,)  "  England  is  the 
strongest  nation  on  earth,  for  though  the  King  has  not  a  single 
mercenary  soldier,  he  can  raise  in  three  clays  an  army  of  two 
hundred  thousand  men." 

And  of  what  temper  those  men  were  is  well  known  enough. 
Mr.  Froude  calls  them  (and  we  beg  leave  to  indorse,  without 
exception,  Mr.  Froude's  opinion,)  "A  sturdy  high-hearted  race, 
sound  in  body,  and  fierce  in  spirit,  and  furnished  with  thews  and 
sinews,  which,  under  the  stimulus  of  those  *  great  shins  of  beef,' 
their  common  diet,  were  the  wonder  of  the  age."  "  What  comyn 
folke  in  all  this  world,"  says  a  state-paper  in  1815,  "  may  com 
pare  with  the  comyns  of  England  in  riches,  freedom,  liberty, 
welfare,  and  all  prosperity  ?  What  comyn  folke  is  so  mighty,  so 
strong  in  the  felde,  as  the  comyns  of  England  ?  "  In  stories  of 
authentic  actions  under  Henry  VIIL,  (and  we  will  add,  under 
Elizabeth  likewise,)  where  the  accuracy  of  the  account  is  unde 
niable,  no  disparity  of  force  made  Englishmen  shrink  from  ene 
mies  whenever  they  could  meet  them.  Again  and  again  a  few 


ENGLAND  FROM  WOLSEY  TO  ELIZABETH.  451 

thousands  of  them  carried  dismay  into  the  heart  of  France. 
Four  hundred  adventurers,  vagabond  apprentices  of  London, 
who  formed  a  volunteer  corps  in  the  Calais  garrison,  were  for 
years  (Hall  says)  the  terror  of  Normandy.  In  the  very  frolic 
of  conscious  power  they  fought  and  plundered,  without  pay, 
without  reward,  save  what  they  could  win  for  themselves ;  and 
when  they  fell  at  last,  they  fell  only  when  surrounded  by  six 
times  their  number,  and  were  cut  to  pieces  in  careless  despera 
tion.  Invariably,  by  friend  and  foe  alike,  the  English  are  de 
scribed  as  the  fiercest  people  in  all  Europe,  (English  wild  beasts, 
Benvenuto  Cellini  calls  them ;)  and  this  great  physical  power 
they  owed  to  the  profuse  abundance  in  which  they  lived,  to  the 
soldier's  training,  in  which  every  one  of  them  was  bred  from 
childhood. 

Mr.  Froude's  novel  assertion  about  profuse  abundance  must 
be  weighed  by  those  who  have  read  his  invaluable  introductory 
chapter.  But  we  must  ask  at  once,  how  was  it  possible  to  levy 
on  such  a  populace  a  tax  which  they  were  determined  not  to 
pay,  and  felt  that  they  were  not  bound  to  pay,  either  in  law  or 
justice  ?  Conceive  Lord  Palmerston's  sending  down  to  demand 
a  "  benevolence "  from  the  army  at  Aldershot,  beginning  with 
the  General  in  command,  and  descending  to  the  privates.  .  .  . 
What  would  be  the  consequences  ?  Ugly  enough :  but  gentle 
in  comparison  with  those  of  any  attempt  to  exact  a  really  un 
popular  tax  from  a  nation  of  well-armed  Englishmen,  unless 
they,  on  the  whole,  thought  the  tax  fit  to  be  paid.  They  would 
grumble,  of  course,  whether  they  intended  to  pay  or  not — for 
were  they  not  Englishmen,  our  own  flesh  and  blood? — and 
grumble  all  the  more  in  person,  because  they  had  no  press  to 
grumble  for  them :  but  what  is  there  in  the  M.  P.'s  letter  to 
Lord  Surrey,  quoted  by  Mr.  Hallam,  p.  25,  or  in  the  more 
pointed  letter  of  Warham's,  two  pages  on,  which  we  do  not  see 
lying  on  our  breakfast  tables  in  half  the  newspapers  every  week  ? 
Poor,  pedantic,  obstructive,  old  Warham,  himself  very  angry  at 
so  much  being  asked  of  his  brother  clergymen,  and  at  their  being 
sworn  as  to  the  value  of  their  goods,  (so  like  are  old  times  to 
new  ones  ;)  and  being,  on  the  whole,  of  opinion,  that  the  world 
(the  Church  included)  is  going  to  the  devil,  says,  that  as  he  has 
been  "  showed  in  a  secret  manner  of  his  friends,  the  people  sore 
grudgeth  and  murmureth,  and  speaketh  cursedly  among  them 
selves,  as  far  as  they  dare,  saying  that  they  shall  never  have 
rest  of  payments  as  long  as  some  liveth,  and  that  they  had  better 
die  than  be  thus  continually  handed,  reckoning  themselves,  their 
wives  and  children,  as  despoulit,  and  not  greatly  caring  what  they 
do,  or  what  becomes  of  them." 


452  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

Very  dreadful — if  true  ;  which  last  point  depends  very  much 
upon  who  Warham  was.  Now,  on  reading  Mr.  Froude's,  or  any 
other  good  history,  we  shall  find  that  Warham  was  one  of  the 
leaders  of  that  party  (which  will  always  have  its  antitype  in 
England)  represented  now  by  Blackwood's  Magazine,  the  Stand- 
ard,  and  the  Morning  Herald.  Have  we,  too,  not  heard  within 
the  last  seven  years,  similar  prophecies  of  desolation,  mourning, 
and  woe — of  the  Church  tottering  on  the  verge  of  ruin,  the 
peasantry  starving  under  the  horrors  of  free-trade,  noble  families 
reduced  to  the  verge  of  beggary  by  double  income-tax.  Even 
such  a  prophet  seems  Warham  to  have  been — of  all  people 
in  that  day,  one  of  the  last  whom  one  would  have  asked  for  an 
opinion. 

Poor  old  Warham,  however,  was  not  so  far  wrong  in  this 
particular  case ;  for  the  "  despoulit "  slaves  of  Suffolk,  not  con 
tent  with  grumbling,  rose  up  with  sword  and  bow,  and  vowed 
that  they  would  not  pay.  Whereon  the  bloated  tyrant  sent  his 
praetorians,  and  enforced  payment  by  scourge  and  thumbscrew  ? 
Not  in  the  least.  They  would  not  pay ;  and,  therefore,  being 
free  men,  nobody  could  make  them  pay  ;  and  although  in  the 
neighbouring  county  of  Norfolk,  from  twenty  pounds  (i.  e.  £200 
of  our  money)  upward,  (the  tax  was  not  levied  on  men  of  less 
substance,)  there  were  not  twenty  but  what  had  consented; 
and  though  there  was  "  great  likelihood  that  this  grant  should 
be  much  more  than  the  loan  was,"  (the  "  salt  tears "  shed  by 
the  gentlemen  of  Norfolk  proceeding,  says  expressly  the  Duke 
of  Norfolk,  "only  from  doubt  how  to  find  money  to  content  the 
king's  Highness,")  the  king  and  Wolsey  gave  way  frankly  and 
at  once,  and  the  contribution  is  remitted,  although  the  Dukes  of 
Norfolk  and  Suffolk,  writing  to  Wolsey,  treat  the  insurrection 
lightly,  and  seem  to  object  to  the  remission  as  needless. 

From  all  which  facts  (they  are  Mr.  Hallam's,  not  Mr.  Froude's) 
we  can  deduce  not  tyranny,  but  lenity,  good  sense,  and  the  frank 
withdrawal  from  a  wrong  position,  as  soon  as  the  unwillingness 
of  the  people  proved  it  to  be  a  wrong  one. 

This  instance  is  well  brought  forward  (though  only  in  a  line 
or  two,  by  Mr.  Froude)  as  one  among  many  proofs  that  the 
working-classes  in  Henry  the  Eighth's  time  "enjoyed  an  abun 
dance  far  beyond  that  which  in  general  falls  to  the  lot  of  that 
order  in  long-settled  countries,  incomparably  beyond  what  the 
same  class  were  enjoying  at  that  very  time  in  Germany  or 
France.  The  laws  secured  them  ;  and  that  the  laws  were  put 
in  force,  we  have  the  direct  evidence  of  successive  acts  of  the 
legislature,  justifying  the  general  policy  by  its  success ;  and  we 
have  also  the  indirect  evidence  of  the  contented  loyalty  of  the 


ENGLAND  FROM  WOLSEY  TO  ELIZABETH.  453 

great  body  of  the  people,  at  a  time  when,  if  they  had  been  dis 
contented,  they  held  in  their  own  hands  the  means  of  asserting 
what  the  law  acknowledged  to  be  their  right.  The  Government " 
(as  we  have  just  shown  at  length)  "  had  no  power  to  compel 
injustice.  .  .^ .  .  If  the  peasantry  had  been  suffering  under  any 
real  grievances,  we  should  have  heard  of  them  when  the  religious 
rebellions  furnished  so  fair  an  opportunity  to  press  them  forward. 
Complaint  was  loud  enough,  when  complaint  was  just,  under  the 
Somerset  Protectorate." 

Such  broad  facts  as  these  (for  facts  they  are)  ought  to  make 
us  pause  ere  we  boast  of  the  greater  liberty  enjoyed  by  English 
men  of  the  present  day,  as  compared  with  the  tyranny  of  Tudor 
times.  Thank  God,  there  is  no  lack  of  that  blessing  now  ;  but 
was  there  any  real  lack  of  it  then?  Certainly,  the  outward 
notes  of  a  tyranny  exist  now  in  far  greater  completeness  than 
then.  A  standing  army,  a  Government  police,  ministries  who 
bear  no  love  .to  a  militia,  and  would  consider  the  compulsory 
arming  and  drilling  of  the  people  as  a  dangerous  insanity,  do  not 
look  at  first  sight  as  much  like  "  free  institutions "  as  a  Govern 
ment  which,  though  again  and  again  in  danger  not  merely  of 
rebellion,  but  of  internecine  wars  of  succession,  so  trusted  the 
people,  as  to  force  weapons  into  their  hands  from  boyhood.  Let 
us  not  be  mistaken  ;  we  are  no  hankerers  after  retrogression ; 
the  present  system  works  very  well ;  let  it  be ;  all  that  we  say  is, 
that  the  imputation  of  despotic  institutions  lies,  primd  facie, 
rather  against  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria  than  against  that  of 
King  Henry  the  Eighth.  Of  course,  it  is  not  so  in  fact.  Many 
modern  methods,  which  are  despotic  in  appearance,  are  not  so  in 
practice.  Let  us  believe  that  the  same  was  the  case  in  the  six 
teenth  century.  Our  governors  now  understand  their  own  busi 
ness  best,  and  make  a  very  fair  compromise  between  discipline 
and  freedom.  Let  us  believe  that  the  men  of  the  sixteenth  cen 
tury  did  so  likewise.  All  we  ask  is,  that  our  forefathers  should 
be  judged  as  we  wish  to  be  judged  ourselves,  "  not  according  to 
outward  appearance,  but  with  righteous  judgment." 

Mr.  Froude  finds  the  cause  of  this  general  contentment  and 
loyalty  of  the  masses,  in  the  extreme  care  which  the  government 
took  of  their  well-being.  The  introductory  chapter,  in  which  he 
proves  to  his  own  satisfaction  the  correctness  of  his  opinion,  is 
well  worth  the  study  of  our  political  economists.  The  facts 
which  he  brings  seems  certainly  overwhelming ;  of  course,  they 
can  only  be  met  by  counter-facts  ;  and  our  knowledge  does  not 
enable  us  either  to  corroborate  or  refute  his  statements.  The 
chief  argument  used  against  them  seem  to  us,  at  least,  to  show, 
that  for  some  cause  or  other,  the  working-classes  were  prosper- 


454  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

ous  enough.  It  is  said  the  Acts  of  Parliament  regulating  wages 
do  not  fix  the  minimum  of  wages,  but  the  maximum.  They  are 
not  intended  to  defend  the  employed  against  the  employer,  but 
the  employer  against  the  employed,  in  a  defective  state  of  the 
labour-market,  when  the  workmen,  by  the  fewness  of  their  num 
bers,  were  enabled  to  make  extravagant  demands.  Let  this  be 
the  case,  (we  do -not  say  that  it  is  so,)  what  is  it  but  a  token  of 
prosperity  among  the  working-classes  ?  A  labour-market  so  thin 
that  workmen  can  demand  their  own  price  for  their  labour,  till 
Parliament  is  compelled  to  bring  them  to  reason,  is  surely  a  time 
of  prosperity  to  the  employed, — a  time  of  full  work  and  high 
wages ;  of  full  stomachs,  inclined  from  very  prosperity  to  "  wax 
fat  and  kick."  If,  however,  any  learned  statistician  should  be 
able  to  advance,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  question,  enough  to 
weaken  some  of  Mr.  Froude's  conclusions,  he  must  still,  if  he  be 
a  just  man,  do  honour  to  the  noble  morality  of  this  most  striking 
chapter,  couched  as  it  is  in  as  perfect  English  as  we  have  ever 
had  the  delight  of  reading.  We  shall  leave,  then,  the  battle  of 
facts  to  be  fought  out  by  statisticians,  always  asking  Mr.  Froude's 
readers  to  bear  in  mind,  that  though  other  facts  may  be  true, 
yet  his  facts  are  no  less  true  likewise,  and  shall  quote  at  length, 
both  as  a  specimen  of  his  manner  and  of  matter,  the  last  three 
pages  of  this  introductory  chapter,  in  which,  after  speaking  of  the 
severity  of  the  laws  against  vagrancy,  and  showing  how  they 
were  excused  by  the  organization  which  found  employment  for 
every  able-bodied  man,  he  goes  on  to  say, — 

"  It  was,  therefore,  the  expressed  conviction  of  the  English  nation, 
that  it  was  better  for  a  man  not  to  live  at  all  than  to  live  a  profitless 
and  worthless  life.  The  vagabond  was  a  sore  spot  upon  the  common 
wealth,  to  be  healed  by  wholesome  discipline  if  the  gangrene  was  not 
incurable ;  to  be  cut  away  with  the  knife,  if  the  milder  treatment  of 
the  cart-whip  failed  to  be  of  profit. 

"A  measure  so  extreme  in  its  severity  was  partly  dictated  by  policy. 
The  state  of  the  country  was  critical ;  and  the  danger  from  question 
able  persons  traversing  it  unexamined  and  uncontrolled  was  greater 
than  at  ordinary  times.  But  in  point  of  justice  as  well  as  of  prudence, 
it  harmonized  with  the  iron  temper  of  the  age,  and  it  answered  well 
ibr  the  government  of  a  fierce  and  powerful  people,  in  whose  hearts 
lay  an  intense  hatred  of  rascality,  and  amono;  whom  no  one  could 
have  lasped  into  evil  courses  except  by  deliberate  preference  for 
them.  The  moral  sinew  of  the  English  must  have  been  strong  indeed 
when  it  admitted  of  such  stringent  bracing ;  but,  on  the  whole,  they 
were  ruled  as  they  preferred  to  be  ruled ;  and  if  wisdom  can  be  tested 
by  success,  the  manner  in  which  they  passed  the  great  crisis  of  the 
Reformation  is  the  best  justification  of  their  princes.  The  era  was 
great  throughout  Europe.  The  Italians  of  the  age  of  Michael  Angelo ; 
the  Spaniards  who  were  the  contemporaries  of  Cortez ;  the  Germans 
who  shook  off  the  Pope  at  the  call  of  Luther ;  and  the  splendid  chiv- 


ENGLAND   FROM   WOLSEY   TO  ELIZABETH.  455  . 

airy  of  Francis  I.  of  France,  were  no  common  men.  But  they  were 
all  brought  face  to  face  with  the  same  trials,  and  none  met  them  as 
the  English  met  them.  The  English  alone  never  lost  their  self-pos 
session,  and  if  they  owed  something  to  fortune  in  their  escape  from 
anarchy,  they  owed  more  to  the  strong  hand  and  steady  purpose  of 
their  rulers. 

"  To  conclude  this  chapter,  then. 

"  In  the  brief  review  of  the  system  under  which  England  was  gov 
erned,  we  have  seen  a  state  of  things  in  which  the  principles  of  poli 
tical  economy  were,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  contradicted  ;  where 
an  attempt,  more  or  less  successful,  was  made  to  bring  the  production 
and  distribution  of  wealth  under  the  moral  rule  of  right  or  wrong  ; 
and  where  those  laws  of  supply  and  demand,  which  we  are  now  taught 
to  regard  as  immutable  ordinances  of  nature,  were  absorbed  or  super 
seded  by  a  higher  code.  It  is  necessary  for  me  to  repeat  that  I  am 
not  holding  up  the  sixteenth  century  as  a  model  which  the  nineteenth 
might  safely  follow.  The  population  has  become  too  large,  and  em 
ployment  too  complicated  and  fluctuating,  to  admit  of  such  control ; 
while,  in  default  of  control,  the  relapse  upon  self-interest  as  the  one 
motive  principle  is  certain  to  ensue,  and,  when  it  ensues,  is  absolute  in 
its  operations.  But  as,  even  with  us,  these  so-called  ordinances  of 
nature  in  time  of  war  consent  to  be  suspended,  and  duty  to  his  country 
becomes  with  every  good  citizen  a  higher  motive  of  action  than  the 
advantages  which  he  may  gain  in  an  enemy's  market ;  so  it  is  not  un- 
cheering  to  look  back  upon  a  time  when  the  nation  was  in  a  normal 
condition  of  militancy  against  social  injustice, — when  the  Government 
was  enabled  by  happy  circumstances  to  pursue  into  detail  a  single 
and  serious  aim  at  the  well-being — well-being  in  its  widest  sense — of  all 
members  of  the  commonwealth.  There  were  difficulties  and  draw 
backs  at  that  time  as  well  as  this.  Of  Liberty  in  the  modern  sense 
of  the  word, — of  the  supposed  right  of  every  man  '  to  do  what  he  will 
with  his  own,'  or  with  himself,  there  was  no  idea.  To  the  question, 
if  ever  it  was  aked,  '  May  I  not  do  what  I  will  with  my  own  ?  '  there 
was  the  ^brief  answer,  '  No  man  may  do  what  is  wrong,  either  with 
what  is  his  own,  or  with  what  is  another's.'  Producers,  too,  who  were 
not  permitted  to  drive  down  their  workmen's  wages  by  competition, 
could  not  sell  their  goods  as  cheaply  as  they  might  have  done,  and 
the  consumer  paid  for  the  law  in  an  advance  of  price  ;  but  the  burden, 
though  it  fell  heavily  on  the  rich,  lightly  touched  the  poor  ;  and  the 
rich  consented  cheerfully  to  a  tax  which  insured  the  loyalty  of  the 
people.  The  working-man  of  modern  times  has  bought  the  extension 
of  his  liberty  at  the  price  of  his  material  comfort.  The  higher  classes 
have  gained  in  wealth  what  they  have  lost  in  power.  It  is  not  for  the 
historian  to  balance  advantages.  His  duty  is  with  the  facts." 

Our  forefathers,  then,  were  not  free,  if  we  attach  to  that  word 
the  meaning  which  our  Transatlantic  brothers  seem  inclined  to 
give  to  it.  They  had  not  learnt  to  deify  self-will,  and  to  claim 
for  each  member  of  the  human  race  a  right  to  the  indulgence  of 
every  eccentricity.  They  called  themselves  free,  and  boasted  of. 


456  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

their  freedom  :  but  their  conception  of  liberty  was  that  of  all  old 
nations,  a  freedom  which  not  only  allowed  of  discipline,  but 
•which  grew  out  of  it.  No  people  had  less  wish  to  exalt  the 
kingly  power  into  that  specious  tyranny,  a  paternal  government; 
the  king  was  with  them,  and  always  had  been,  both  formally  and 
really,  subject  to  their  choice ;  bound  by  many  oaths  to  many 
duties  ;  the  minister,  not  the  master  of  the  people.  But  their 
whole  conception  of  political  life  was,  nevertheless,  shaped  by 
their  conception  of  family  life.  Strict  obedience,  stern  disci 
pline,  compulsory  education  in  practical  duties,  was  the  law  of 
the  latter ;  without  such  training  they  thought  their  sons  could 
never  become  in  any  true  sense  men.  And  when  they  grew  up, 
their  civic  life  was  to  be  conducted  on  the  same  principles,  for 
the  very  purpose  of  enabling  them  to  live  as  members  of  a  free 
nation.  If  the  self-will  of  the  individual  was  curbed,  now  and 
then,  needlessly,  (as  it  is  the  nature  of  all  human  methods  to 
caricature  themselves  at  times,)  the  purpose  was,  not  to  weaken 
the  man,  but  to  strengthen  him,  by  strengthening  the  body  to 
which  he  belonged.  The  nation  was  to  be  free,  self-helping, 
self-containing,  unconquerable ;  to  that  great  purpose  the  will, 
the  fancy,  even,  if  need  be"  the  mortal  life,  of  the  individual  must 
give  way.  Men  must  be  trained  at  all  costs  in  self-restraint, 
because  only  so  could  they  become  heroes  in  the  day  of  danger ; 
in  self-sacrifice  for  the  common  good,  because  only  so  would 
they  remain  united,  while  foreign  nations  and  evil  home  influ 
ences  were  trying  to  tear  them  asunder.  In  a  word,  their  con 
ception  of  life  was  as  a  warfare ;  their  organization,  that  of  a 
regiment.  It  is  a  question  whether  the  conception  of  corporate 
life  embodied  in  a  regiment  or  army,  be  not,  after  all,  the  best 
working  one  for  this  world.  At  least  the  problem  of  a  perfect 
society,  howsoever  beautiful  on  paper,  will  always  issue  in  a 
compromise,  more  or  less  perfect,  (let  us  hope  more  and  more 
perfect  as  the  centuries  roll  on,)  between  the  strictness  of  mili 
tary  discipline,  and  the  Irishman's  laissez-faire  ideal,  wherein 
"  every  man  should  do  that  which  was  right  in  the  sight  of  his 
own  eyes,  and  wrong  too,  if  he  liked"  At  least,  such  had  Eng 
land  been  for  centuries  ;  under  such  a  system  had  she  thriven ; 
a  fact  which,  duly  considered,  should  silence  somewhat  those 
gentlemen  who  (not  being  of  a  military  turn  themselves)  inform 
Europe  so  patriotically  and  so  prudently,  that  "  England  is  not  a 
military  nation." 

From  this  dogma  we  beg  leave  to  differ  utterly.  Britain  is 
at  this  moment,  in  our  eyes,  the  only  military  nation  in  Europe. 
All  other  nations  seem  to  us  to  have  military  governments,  but 
not  to  be  military  themselves.  As  proof  of  the  assertion,  we 


ENGLAND  FROM  WOLSEY  TO  ELIZABETH.  457 

appeal  merely  to  the  existence  of  our  militia.  While  other  na 
tions  are  employing  conscription,  we  have  raised,  in  twelve 
months,  a  noble  army,  every  soul  of  which  has  volunteered  as  a 
free  man  ;  and  yet,  forsooth,  we  are  not  a  military  nation  !  We 
are  not  ashamed  to  tell  how,  but  the  other  day,  standing  in  the 
rear  of  those  militia  regiments,  no  matter  where,  a  flush  of  pride 
came  over  us  at  the  sight  of  those  lads,  but  a  few  months  since 
helpless  and  awkward  country  boors,  now  full  of  sturdy  intelli 
gence,  cheerful  obedience,  and  the  manhood  which  can  afford  to 
be  respectful  to  others,  because  it  respects  itself,  and  knows  that 
it  is  respected  in  turn.  True,  they  had  not  the  lightness,  the 
order,  the  practical  ease,  the  cunning  self-helpfulness  of  the 
splendid  German  legionaries  who  stood  beside  them,  the  breast 
of  every  other  private  decorated  with  clasps  and  medals  for  ser 
vice  in  the  wars  of  seven  years  since.  As  an  invading  body, 
perhaps,  one  would  have  preferred  the  Germans ;  but  only  be 
cause  experience  had  taught  them  already,  what  it  would  teach 
in  twelve  months  to  the  Berkshire  or  Cambridge  "  clod."  There, 
to  us,  was  the  true  test  of  England's  military  qualities  ;  her 
young  men  had  come  by  tens  of  thousands,  of  their  own  free 
will,  to  be  made  soldiers  of  by  her  country  gentlemen,  and 
treated  by  them  the  while  as  men  to  be  educated,  not  as  things 
to  be  compelled ;  not  driven  like  sheep  to  the  slaughter,  to  be 
disciplined  by  men  with  whom  they  had  no  bond  but  the  mere 
official  one  of  military  obedience  ;  and  "  what,"  we  asked  our 
selves,  "  does  England  lack  to  make  her  a  second  Rome  ?  Her 
people  have  physical  strength,  animal  courage,  that  self-depend 
ence  of  freemen  which  enabled  at  Inkermann  the  privates  to  fight 
on  literally  without  officers,  every  man  for  his  own  hand.  She 
has  inventive  genius,  enormous  wealth :  and  if,  as  is  said,  her 
soldiers  lack  at  present  the  self-helpfulness  of  the  Zouave,  it  is 
ridiculous  to  suppose  that  that  quality  could  long  be  wanting  in 
the  men  of  a  nation  which  is  at  this  moment  the  foremost  in  the 
work  of  emigration  and  colonization.  If  organizing  power  and 
military  system  be,  as  is  said,  lacking  in  high  quarters,  surely 
there  must  be  organizing  power  enough  somewhere,  in  the  great 
est  industrial  nation  upon  earth,  ready  to  come  forward,  when 
there  is  a  real  demand  for  it ;  and,  whatever  be  the  defects  of 
our  system,  we  are  surely  not  as  far  behind  Prussia  or  France, 
as  Rome  was  behind  the  Carthaginians  and  the  Greeks  whom 
they  crushed.  A  few  years  sufficed  for  them  to  learn  all  they 
needed  from  their  enemies  ;  fewer  still  would  suffice  us  to  learn 
from  our  friends.  Our  working-classes  are  not,  like  those  of 
America,  in  a  state  of  physical  comfort  too  great  to  make  it 
worth  while  for  them  to  leave  their  home  occupations  ;  and 


458  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

whether  that  be  a  good  or  an  evil,  it  at  least  insures  us,  as  our 
militia  proves,  an  almost  inexhaustible  supply  of  volunteers. 
What  a  new  and  awful  scene  for  the  world's  drama,  did  such  a 
nation  as  this  once  set  before  itself,  steadily  and  ruthlessly,  as 
Rome  did  of  old,  the  idea  of  conquest.  Even  now,  waging  war 
as  she  has  done,  as  it  were  &  napEpyu,  thinking  war  too  unim 
portant  a  part  of  her  work  to  employ  on  it  her  highest  intellects, 
her  flag  has  advanced,  in  the  last  fifty  years,  over  more  vast  and 
richer  tracts  than  that  of  any  European  nation  upon  earth.  What 
keeps  her  from  the  dream  which  lured  to  their  destruction  Baby 
lon,  Macedonia,  Rome  ?  " 

This  :  that,  thank  God,  she  has  a  conscience  still ;  that  feeling 
intensely  the  sacredness  of  her  own  national  life,  she  has  learnt 
to  look  on  that  of  other  people's  as  sacred  also  ;  and  since,  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  she  finally  repented  of  that  wild  and  unright 
eous  dream  of  conquering  France,  she  has  discovered  more  and 
more  that  true  military  greatness  lies  in  the  power  of  defence, 
and  not  of  attack ;  in  not  waging  war,  but  being  able  to  wage  it ; 
and  has  gone  on  her  true  mission  of  replenishing  the  earth  more 
peacefully,  on  the  whole^  and  more  humanely,  than  did  ever 
nation  before  her,  conquering  only  when  it  was  necessary  to  put 
down  the  lawlessness  of  the  savage  few,  for  the  well-being  of  the 
civilized  many.  This  has  been  her  idea  j  she  may  have  confused 
it  and  herself,  in  Caffre  or  in  Chinese  wars ;  for  who  can  always 
be  true  to  the  light  within  him  ?  But  this  has  been  her  idea  ; 
and  therefore  she  stands  and  grows  and  thrives,  a  virgin  land  for 
now  eight  hundred  years. 

But  a  fancy  has  come  over  us,  during  the  last  blessed  forty 
years  of  unexampled  peace,  from  which  our  ancestors  of  the  six 
teenth  century  were  kept,  by  stern  and  yet  most  wholesome  les 
sons  ;  the  fancy  that  peace,  and  not  war,  is  the  normal  condition 
of  the  world.  The  fancy  is  so  fair,  that  we  blame  none  who 
cherish  it ;  after  all,  they  do  good  by  cherishing  it ;  they  point  us 
to  an  ideal  which  we  should  otherwise  forget,  as  Babylon,  Rome, 
France  in  the  seventeenth  century,  forgot  utterly.  Only  they  are 
in  haste  (and  pardonable  haste  too)  to  realize  that  ideal,  forgetting 
that  to  do  so  would  be  really  to  stop  short  of  it,  and  to  rest  con 
tented  in  some  form  of  human  society,  far  lower  than  that  which 
God  has  actually  prepared  for  those  who  love  him.  Better  to 
believe  that  all  our  conceptions  of  the  height  to  which  the  human 
race  might  attain,  are  poor  and  paltry  compared  with  that  toward 
which  God  is  guiding  it,  and  for  which  he  is  disciplining  it  by 
awful  lessons ;  and  to  fight  on,  if  need  be,  ruthless  and  yet  full 
of  pity,  (and  many  a  noble  soul  has  learnt  within  the  last  two 
years  how  easy  it  is  to  reconcile  in  practice  that  seeming  paradox 


ENGLAND  FROM  WOLSEY  TO  ELIZABETH.  459 

of  words,)  smiting  down  stoutly  evil,  wheresoever  we  shall  find 
it,  and  saying,  "  What  ought  to  be,  we  know  not ;  God  alone  can 
know :  but  that  this  ought  not  to  be,  we  do  know,  and  here,  in 
God's  name,  it  shall  not  stay." 

We  repeat  it :  war,  in  some  shape  or  other,  is  the  normal  con 
dition  of  the  world.  It  is  a  fearful  fact :  but  we  shall  not  abolish 
it  by  ignoring  it,  and  ignoring  by  the  same  method  the  teaching 
of  our  Bibles.  Not  in  mere  metaphor  does  the  gospel  of  Love 
describe  the  life  of  the  individual  good  man  as  a  perpetual  war 
fare.  Not  in  mere  metaphor  does  the  apostle  of  love  see  in  his 
visions  of  the  world's  future  no  Arcadian  shepherd  paradises,  not 
even  a  perfect  civilization,  but  an  eternal  war  in  heaven,  wrath 
and  woe,  plague  and  earthquake ;  and  amid  the  everlasting 
storm,  the  voices  of  the  saints  beneath  the  alter,  crying,  Lord,  how 
long  ?  Shall  we  pretend  to  have  more  tender  hearts  than  the  old" 
man  of  Ephesus,  whose  dying  sermon,  so  old  legends  say,  was 
nought  but — "  Little  children,  love  one  another ;  "  and  yet  could 
denounce  the  liar  and  the  hater  and  the  covetous  man,  and  pro 
claim  the  vengeance  of  God  against  all  evil-doers,  with  "all  the 
fierceness  of  an  Isaiah  ?  It  was  enough  for  him — let  it  be  enough 
for  us — that  he  could  see,  above  the  thunder-cloud,  and  the  rain 
of  blood,  and  the  scorpion  swarm,  and  the  great  angel  calling  all 
the  fowl  of  heaven  to  the  supper  of  the  great  God,  that  they 
might  eat  the  flesh  of  kings  and  valiant  men,  a  city  of  God  eter 
nal  in  the  heavens,  and  yet  eternally  descending  among  men ;  a 
perfect  order,  justice,  love,  and  peace,  becoming  actual  more  and 
more  in  every  age,  through  all  the  fearful  training  needful  for  a 
fallen  race. 

Let  that  be  enough  for  us  :  but  do  not  let  us  fancy  that  what 
is  true  of  the  two  extremes,  must  not  needs  be  true  of  the  mean 
also  ;  that  while  the  life  of  the  individual  and  of  the  universe  is 
one  of  perpetual  self-defence,  the  life  of  the  nation  can  be  aught 
else :  or  that  any  appliances  of  scientific  comforts,  any  intellec 
tual  cultivation,  even  any  the  most  direct  and  common-sense  argu 
ments  of  self-interest,  can  avail  to  quiet  in  man  those  outbursts 
of  wrath,  ambition,  cupidity,  wounded  pride,  which  have  periodi 
cally  convulsed,  and  will  convulse  to  the  end,  the  human  race. 
The  philosopher  in  his  study  may  prove  their  absurdity,  their 
suicidal  folly,  till,  deluded  by  the  strange  lull  of  a  forty  years' 
peace,  he  may  look  on  wars  as  in  the  same  category  with  flagel- 
lantisms,  witch-manias,  and  other  "  popular  delusions,"  as  insani 
ties  of  the  past,  impossible  henceforth,  and  may  prophesy,  as 
really  wise  political  economists  were  doing  in  1847,  that  man 
kind  had  grown  too  sensible  to  go  to  war  any  more.  And 
behold,  the  peace  proves  only  to  be  the  lull  before  the  thunder- 


460  KINGSLEY'S  MISCELLANIES. 

storm  ;  and  one  electric  shock  sets  free  forces  unsuspected, 
transcendental,  supernatural  in  the  deepest  sense,  which  we  can 
no  more  stop,  by  shrieks  at  their  absurdity,  from  incarnating 
themselves  in  actual  blood,  and  misery,  and  horror,  than  we 
can  control  the  madman  in  his  paroxysm,  by  telling  him  that 
he  is  a  madman.  And  so  the  fair  vision  of  the  student  is  buried 
once  more  in  rack  and  hail,  and  driving  storm ;  and,  like 
Daniel  of  old,  when  rejoicing  over  the  coming  restoration  of 
his  people,  he  sees  beyond  the  victory  some  darker  struggle 
still,  and  lets  his  notes  of  triumph  die  away  into  a  wail, — 
"And  the  end  thereof  shall  be  with  a  flood;  and  to  the  end 
of  the  war  desolations  are  determined." 

It  is  as  impossible  as  it  would  be  unwise,  to  conceal  from  our 
selves  the  fact,  that  all  the  Continental  nations  look  upon  our 
present  peace  as  but  transitory,  momentary ;  and  on  the  Crimean 
war  as  but  the  prologue  to  a  fearful  drama — all  the  more  fearful 
because  none  knows  its  purpose,  its  plot,  which  character  will  be 
assumed  by  any  given  actor,  and  least  of  all,  the  denouement  of 
the  whole.  All  that  they  feel  and  know  is,  that  every  thing 
which  has  happened  since  1848  has  exasperated,  not  calmed,  the 
electric  tension  of  the  European  atmosphere  ;  that  a  rottenness, 
rapidly  growing  intolerable  alike  "  to  God  and  to  the  enemies  of 
God,"  has  eaten  into  the  vitals  of  Continental  life ;  that  their 
rulers  know  neither  where  they  are,  nor  whither  they  are  going, 
and  only  pray  that  things  may  last  out  their  time :  all  notes 
which  one  would  interpret  as  proving  the  Continent  to  be 
already  ripe  for  subjection  to  some  one  devouring  race  of  con 
querors,  were  there  not  a  ray  of  hope  in  an  expectation,  even 
more  painful  to  our  human  pity,  which  is  held  by  some  of  the 
wisest  among  the  Germans;  namely,  that  the  coming  war 
will  fast  resolve  into  no  struggle  between  bankrupt  monarchs 
and  their  respective  armies,  but  a  war  between  nations  them 
selves,  an  internecine  war  of  opinions  and  of  creeds.  There  are 
wise  Germans  now  who  prophesy  with  sacred  tears,  a  second 
"  thirty  years'  war "  with  all  its  frantic  horrors  for  their  hapless 
country,  which  has  found  two  centuries  too  short  a  time  wherein 
to  recover  from  the  exhaustion  of  that  first  fearful  scourge.  Let 
us  trust  that  if  that  war  shall  beget  its  new  Tillys  and  Wallen- 
steins,  it  shall  also  beget  its  new  Gustavus  Adolphus,  and  many 
another  child  of  Light :  but  let  us  not  hope  that  we  can  stand 
by,  in  idle  comfort,  and  that  when  the  overflowing  scourge  passes 
by,  it  shall  not  reach  to  us.  Shame  to  us,  were  that  our  destiny. 
Shame  to  us,  were  we  to  refuse  our  share  in  the  struggles  of  the 
human  race,  and  to  stand  by  in  idle  comfort,  while  the  Lord's 
battles  are  being  fought.  Honour  to  us,  if  in  that  day,  we  have 


ENGLAND  FROM  WOLSEY  TO  ELIZABETH.  461 

chosen  for  our  leaders,  as  our  forefathers  of  the  sixteenth  century 
did,  men  who  see  the  work  which  God  would  have  them  do,  and 
have  hearts  and  heads  to  do  it.  Honour  to  us,  if  we  spend  this 
transient  lull,  as  our  forefathers  of  the  sixteenth  century  did,  in 
setting  our  house  in  order,  in  redressing  every  grievance,  reform 
ing  every  abuse,  knitting  the  hearts  of  the  British  nation  together 
by  practical  care  and  help  between  class  and  class,  man  and  man, 
governor  and  governed,  that  we  may  bequeath  to  our  children,  as 
Henry  the  Eighth's  men  did  to  theirs,  a  British  national  life,  so 
united  and  whole-hearted,  so  clear  in  purpose,  and  sturdy  in  exe 
cution,  so  trained  to  know  the  right  side  at  the  first  glance,  and 
take  it,  that  they  shall  look  back  with  love  and  honour  upon  us, 
their  fathers,  determined  to  carry  out,  even  to  the  death,  the 
method  which  we  have  bequeathed  to  them.  Then,  if  God  will 
that  the  powers  of  evil,  physical  and  spiritual,  should  combine 
against  this  land,  as  they  did  in  the  days  of  good  Queen  Bess, 
we  shall  not  have  lived  in  vain ;  for  those  who,  as  in  Queen 
Bess's  days,  thought  to  yoke  for  their  own  use  a  labouring  ox, 
will  find,  as  then,  that  they  have  roused  a  lion  from  his  den. 


BOSTON,  135  WASHINGTON  STB 
OCTOBER,  1858. 


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10  A    LIST    OF    BOOKS    PUBLISHED. 


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